


If we make it home

by blaetter



Series: Christian Names [7]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Berlin - Freeform, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Requited Love, Reunion, Victorian anal sex, and they will kiss and touch a lot I promise, gay men dancing together in public, they love each other a lot, turn of the century German gay bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-03-16 15:01:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13638633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blaetter/pseuds/blaetter
Summary: Two years after Holmes's death in the Reichenbach Falls, his elder brother comes to a grieving Watson with what seems to be a case. Watson finds a surprise waiting for him in Berlin.





	1. Überraschung in Berlin

**Author's Note:**

> Part One finished — happy ending promised — heed the rating.
> 
> Pushed a bit of the original ACD timeline around to suit my needs. Might interest the reader to know that Watson landed in Berlin Saturday, March 1, 1901.

With Holmes’s death, I thought that, at some point, my bone-deep love for him would diminish or at the very least, if not disappear, lessen its weight upon my chest. Yet six months, eight months, a year and a half on, nearly everything reminded me of him, every day, and my chest aches still at the thought of him. 

Sometimes I wish fictions could be true: that I had indeed found a wife, a companion to distract me from my grief, as I led my readership to believe, but that is not the case. I am alone as I ever have been, and certainly lonelier than I was before I ever met Holmes, for now I know what loneliness’s opposite is. In the night, as I sleep poorly, it seems one half of me is always still yearning for him, for some portion of him, even his presence or the mere knowledge that he was lying downstairs as I was upstairs, our positions matched, perhaps even thinking of each other as we each couldn’t find sleep. But the sure knowledge of his death is no companion, and neither is grief. I feel myself become half a man as each day goes by, and there is nothing I have found to salve my own poor soul.

The papers do not help matters, either. Two years on from the worst of it, from the headlines blaspheming his name, shouting twisted claims which I know are not and cannot be true, as I lived with the man and felt I knew him. It was a dreadful business and painful too, and even two years on, his name is merely hushed in high society, and I find strangers who recognise me or otherwise know of my identity skirt along my edges as though I were a contagion of their horrid claims. 

Two years since the Reichenbach Fall, and Mycroft Holmes pays me a visit in 221B, in his brother’s flat which he left me — allowed me — to rent. I know he halved what I ought to owe Mrs Hudson each month, even if mangled grief kept me from ever thanking him for it. He paid me a visit to ask my assistance; I thought it was the least I could do. There was an odd business in Berlin, he said (really? thought I), which he would like me to peek in on. 

‘Surely one of your own government officials would be better suited,’ I said.

‘This is not an official business,’ was his reply, and so I took the next evening’s train to Berlin, my curiosity sufficiently piqued. 

Holmes was always a character on trains. He was a character everywhere, of course, but on trains especially. He was often antsy, especially when our travels were taking us to a new mystery, and too often spent it fretting about. I spent such journeys remaining as still as I could manage, knowing eventually he would sense me and still himself, and by the last thirty minutes of each of these longer journeys, he always calmed enough to sit next to me, lean his head back against the wall of the carriage, steeple his fingers in his lap, and sigh. I do not know if he sensed my smugness each of these times; he never spoke to it. But it was a beauty to see, _mirabile visu_ , he would say if he dabbled much in Vergil — it was a beauty to see Holmes calm and lean against me. Or at least near me.

I fell asleep on the train thinking of this and woke up in Germany the next morning with a stiff neck and heavy heart. The train stopped and I disembarked, hoping my rudimentary knowledge of German would carry me at least to the address Holmes’s relation had provided me. 

It did; I hobbled through the crowds with my cane, not attracting as much attention as I had expected (or feared). The address was a home, someone’s home, I figured as I came upon it. There was a flowerbox under the single window, dug out and bare, and a dying wreath on the door. I knocked, not finding the bell, and waited. The elder Holmes had said there would be a man to answer the door who would know of me and my purpose, who spoke elegant English and would accompany as necessary on the mystery. I could only trust him now, finding myself in a very foreign country. 

After several moments, I heard footsteps approach. The door opened, my gaze on the doormat, which I just noticed had a strange stain on it which looked of dried blood. I knew, because living with Holmes, accompanying him on his cases, I’d seen quite a bit of dried blood on myriad surfaces and feel with some confidence that I can recognise blood a mile off. The door opened and I looked up, about to warn the fellow that something had happened on his doorstep, and felt all the blood leave my face. Before me, having opened the door, standing in front of me in the flesh, was a gaunt, older, but still — undoubtedly — Sherlock Holmes.

My world went black around the edges, my mouth opened to speak; I heard only a distant gasp and shuffling, and felt myself disappear. I came to most likely only moments later, when Holmes — was it Holmes? Dear God, please tell me it was — was walking me, supporting me, to a chair inside. I heard a door shut and slumped in the chair, gasping, and raised my hands to grasp his arms. He knelt in front of me, this man who so resembled my dear friend, save the darkness in his features and the look of pure concern on his face.

Holmes was dead; Sherlock Holmes is dead, I told myself. I slapped my mouth open and shut several times before I managed, ‘My sincere apologies, I thought you were — I thought you might be —’

‘Oh Watson, your first observation was quite correct,’ the voice said, and it was Holmes’s own, could not be any other’s. ‘I am indeed your Sherlock Holmes, and I believe I owe you a thousand apologies.’

‘Holmes,’ I said, and I felt myself begin to shake. His hands, those hands I’ve yearned for, with those long, thin fingers, clutched my shoulders, and I buckled forward. ‘Holmes, is that really you?’

‘Yes, Watson.’ The words were hushed against my head; our foreheads were aligned and touching, and without thinking I was cupping his face. ‘I could ask the same of you,’ he whispered, and the depth of feeling in his words swelled my heart to bursting.

‘You’re alive,’ I said, but instead of shouting it like I wanted to, like the feeling in my chest bid me to, it came out on a shaky exhale. ‘Holmes, by God, you’re alive.’ My voice broke and I watched a tear rush forward and slide down his cheek. Holmes, crying! I wiped it away quickly with my thumb and leaned back just to look at him, look him in the eyes, in those verdigris eyes which were searching my own, and with a soft noise I broke and leaned forward, pressing my lips to his. 

Immediately I realised my mistake — _I kissed Sherlock Holmes_ — and retracted myself, breathing heavily, trying to backtrack and save myself, save our friendship. But he held my good shoulder with one hand and clasped the back of my head with his other and brought us back together, our noses touching. He closed his eyes and I did the same and breathed him in, and he whined, I would swear it to the day of my death, Sherlock Holmes whined against my lips before pressing his lips to mine, continuing the kiss which I had started. 

Passion overtook me; I felt it rise up from deep within my chest, where it had sat forlorn for years and years, bubble up through me, into my fingers which were on either side of his head, threading through his hair, as I pressed myself forward and pulled him closer simultaneously, in the vain attempt that we become one. As a result of my shoving and pulling, Holmes ended up in my lap in the chair, his head tilting this way and that before he found the best (of course he would find it quicker than anyone else) angle and kissed me with what could only be described as desperate, passionate, _aching_ fervour. It was as such that we spent several minutes, before I was beginning to become so heated I felt sweat form at the back of my neck; moments later his fingers brushed through it on his way into the back of my shirt, at the same time that his sharp hips found mine, and I broke the kiss.

‘Watson,’ he whispered, moving to my cheek, my jaw, my neck, kissing me hurriedly or otherwise pressing his lips and dragging them about. ‘Watson, Watson, Watson,’ he chanted, and my heart broke again as I could only lay back and pant, eyes closed, holding in my arms the man I had wanted for so very long. 

‘Sherlock Holmes,’ I murmured, testing the words in my mouth, particularly my mouth against the side of his very very alive neck. Finding them worthy, I repeated them again, and made him look at me once more. I kissed his lips once, where a smallish pout was forming, I think to be parted from my skin, and said, ‘Sherlock Holmes, you’re alive.’ He nodded and bit his bottom lip. I pulled it out from his teeth with my thumb, brushing along it as I did. ‘You’re alive and you must know —’

‘Yes, Watson,’ he hushed. I thrilled at the sight of his full attention, those dark, wide eyes boring into my own.

‘You must know I have wanted you for a long time.’ My voice broke but my reserve bid me continue. ‘I never thought I would see you again and I love you.’

My thumb brushed his cheek rhythmically, left right, right left, as I watched his eyes change with my pronouncement.

‘ _John_ ,’ he exhaled several moments later, and it was all I needed to hear before I kissed him again. My heart was in my arms, all the love and light I ever had in my life, alive once more in my lap; if I never moved from that chair, I would die the happiest man on earth.


	2. Kalter Tee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reunion continues.

After another, shorter kiss, Holmes stretched in my lap, arms above his head, a small squeaking noise emitted from his kiss-swollen mouth. I watched as he smacked his lips and slowly stood up, looking all lanky limbs, and regrettably allowed him to wriggle out of my reach. He offered a hand to me, which I took, and when he dropped it, I replaced it with my cane which in the interim had been leaning behind us against the dingy grey wall.

‘I’ll make tea,’ he said, and I followed him out of the foyer and into a small kitchen. I took the moment to calm my nerves, which I admit had been badly shaken upon seeing him again. I looked around instead of at the man himself; the house was cold but not damp and a bit smaller than our rooms on Baker Street. There were cobwebs in the corners, and as I peeked into the sitting room as we entered a room which must have been the kitchen, given the existence of a small stove with one kettle on it, I saw the telltale sign of Holmes’s inhabitance here: papers were strewn about, on nearly every surface possible. There were not nearly as many as he had in our rooms, but the style — if one can attach ‘style’ to such disorderliness — was quite the same. Had I not been overjoyed, nearly exuberant, at his being alive, I would have twitched in annoyance at the state of it all.

All in all, his German lodgings were barely furnished, cold, and about a third the size of our lodgings in London, and I had the feeling he had not been here long enough — or at the very least had not had the energy — to make it any homier. I assumed Mycroft was paying for it in some small way, and as I leaned against the counter, watching Holmes set about quite slowly to make tea, he murmured, his back to me, ‘It’s not Baker Street, but it’s all my meagre allowance can afford. And at any rate, it is one of the best in the area, and quite livable.’ Mind read again, I daresay. 

He set the kettle on a rickety-looking stove and motioned for us to sit at a very small table, which had been pushed against the opposite wall and was covered with papers and cigarette ashes. There was but a single chair at the table, an indubitable sign of his life alone; I glanced casually at a few papers on the table, careful not to express this sad thought even mutely, not wanting him to deduce my pity when it wasn’t that at all. I busied myself glancing blindly at the papers as he brought in the chair which I had collapsed upon earlier, and then we were sat across from each other.

‘How long have you been here, Holmes?’ 

‘Nearly a month,’ he replied.

‘A _month?_ ’ 

He looked down, sheepish, and I watched him attempt in vain to straighten the papers on the table until the kettle whistled. He poured us tea, moving about not as well as I remember him, a slight wince and limp he wasn’t even trying to hide indicating that he was favouring his right side. As he sat across me once more, tea in front of each of us, he told me the story of our time apart.

Professor Moriarty was indeed dead, that much Holmes personally knew, he said as he had shoved him down the Falls himself. But Holmes had survived, and did not go down with him, and was on his way back to me when he saw one of Moriarty’s henchmen. It was a sign, he said, that Moriarty had not been working alone. He had had an inkling, but this sealed it for him. Moriarty had several criminals under his thumb, and Holmes would have to — get rid of them. 

‘When I saw that dreadful man, it was then,’ he said, far quieter than I remember him speaking, unless we were hidden in a client’s house, planning an attack, and that memory made my heart ache all over again; he continued, ‘It was at that moment that I had to make a decision.’ His pale grey eyes found mine then skittered away just as soon. ‘And it is one I fear I have regretted every day since.’

He didn’t have to elaborate further on the sentiment, for I understood: He had chosen to leave me behind to think the worst, as he ridded London of this villain. 

‘Why couldn’t you have told me, Holmes?’ I wanted to reach out and touch him, to understand why he thought he had to keep this all from me. But then I saw the look in his eyes as they reached mine. 

‘Things would have come out, and I— It would have been dangerous for you, as well.’

I nodded, not sure I completely understood, but silently willing him to go on. He did. 

‘You see, Watson, and I’m sure you might have guessed by now — Moriarty knew things about me which were dangerous, just as I knew things about him which, given I had gone to the police, would have imprisoned him. Or worse. If they could have caught him, at least…’ Holmes exhaled a near sigh and put his hand over his face, looking at his lap. ‘In some circles, what he knew about me — and he noticed it almost immediately, I am ashamed to say — was far worse than any crimes he ever committed. In the eyes of England.’

Holmes paused here and looked at me through his eyelashes, and I caught on. The papers. All the articles, everything, everyone, blaspheming Holmes’s good name with such a disreputable … reputation. 

‘Holmes—’

‘It is true, my dear Watson. Every word of it. I am what they call an — an invert.’

‘They compared you to Oscar Wilde,’ I whispered, aghast at Holmes’s words.

‘He a far more successful one than I,’ he said with a bitter laugh.

‘Holmes—’

‘I don’t wish to ruin your favour of me, Watson, although I daresay that would be a trick, given the hero’s welcome you accorded me just minutes ago.’ His hand was on the table once more, so I grabbed it, covered it gently with my own. If we were closer, I would have lifted it to my lips to kiss it. 

Then I thought of the years we spent apart, and Holmes looking down at his lap, not only ashamed but withdrawn, almost sad. I thought of what he had put himself through to protect me from what he thought of as his ruin, and I moved my chair forward and bent over the table, making sure my dear friend was watching as I lifted his hand, carried like a gem between mine, and kissed the back of it. 

Holmes smiled. I turned it over in my hands and kissed his palm, smiling myself. 

‘You’re a devilish man,’ he whispered, eyes glistening. I smirked.

‘Lucky you.’ I kissed his hand once more before setting it on the table, held between both my hands, astonished that Holmes allowed it. I wondered how long it had been since anyone — friend or foe — had touched him.

‘Yes, lucky me.’ He smiled once again, then continued. ‘I knew I had failed the mission to destroy Moriarty’s criminal network when I saw the papers in Paris, where I was at the time.’ He closed his eyes and tensed. I squeezed his hand, my thumb travelling back and forth on his knuckles. ‘I had missed one, perhaps even the most important man. Moriarty’s right-hand man. Sebastian Moran. He escaped to England, out of my grasp, and spread slander against me.’ Holmes leaned his other arm on the table then, leaning forward, and I held onto his forearms, listening. ‘I was in Paris, about to leave for London, to see you again, and I— I—’

My heart broke to see the best man I have ever known break down into tears. I held onto his forearms, not sure what else to do. Our teas sat forgotten between us, gathering dust.

‘Forgive me,’ he murmured after a moment.

‘Holmes.’

He nodded. ‘I was on my way to see you again. Mycroft had been giving me updates, short coded messages. I— I was on my way to see you again, Watson, and as soon as I saw the papers, I knew I couldn’t ever possibly return to England again, or else risk ruin.’

His head fell between his arms, and for the first time since I set eyes on him that day, I realised how exhausted, how downtrodden, this man was. I let go of his arms gingerly and stood up, mindful of the tea, and put my arms around his shoulders. All the tension in his body released, and I was able to pull him out of the chair and hobble us both into the adjacent sitting room and onto a stiff, battered-looking old couch. The furniture was set up in almost exactly the same formation as our rooms, which was something I would think about more in depth at a later time. For the moment, I reclined against the arm of the sofa and let Holmes naturally relax against me, his head on my chest, our legs tangled. I wrapped my arms around him, content now to just hold him, hoping this affection was welcome and that I was not overstepping my bounds. 

I had reason to believe it was quite welcome, for as soon as he took in a breath and let it out, he became a puddle on top of me. I kissed his hair and wrapped my arms around his back.

‘Watson,’ he sighed against my neck. I shivered.

‘You’re no less of a man to me, Holmes,’ I whispered into his hair. ‘I didn’t want to believe those rumours, the nasty gossip they were spreading about you—’ He huffed against my neck. ‘But I am very pleased that they are true.’

He sat up then to look at me. ‘Are you?’

‘Of course.’ I couldn’t stop my fingers from roaming through his hair if I tried. 

‘I suppose there is something in it for you. If I am what they say I am.’ He kissed my chin, still looking at me with those pale eyes. 

‘They could never know what you really are,’ I replied, trying for bravado but it only came out hushed and awed. ‘Not to me.’

Holmes looked at me and looked at me, his thumb just brushing the joint between my neck and shoulder. Then he kissed me, his lips soft but quivering upon mine, just for a moment, just enough for me to get used to it, then hid his face in my neck again. 

We lay like that for some indeterminable amount of time, long enough that I was about to fall asleep, before Holmes stiffened suddenly and sat up, clutching his side with a nearly silent gasp.

‘Holmes?’

He tried for a quick smile in my direction but failed.

‘Holmes, are you hurt?’

I knew the answer without him having to say anything. I knew the act he was putting on, masking his pain for my benefit, and, startled, I sat up and put my hand where his was, on his ribs.

‘I broke a rib or two fighting off the last of Moriarty’s henchmen. And…’ 

‘And?’ 

He looked at me under his lashes again, then looked at his left leg. I stood up.

‘Do you have a kit?’

He shook his head. ‘Some supplies in the washroom. There is hardly a thing around here…’

I didn’t hear the rest of it as I headed in the direction he had vaguely pointed to. I found some gauze and ointments, but that was it. I brought them both back to the sitting room, where Holmes was struggling to undress.

‘Sit down, let me,’ I said sharply. He nodded, and without fully realising what I was doing, only concerned that Holmes was hurt, and had been for God knows how long, I unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it and his vest aside to reveal a mass of bruises on his left side. I barely restrained a gasp, and admonished, ‘ _Holmes_.’

He sighed and turned his head to the side. ‘The fight was a little over a week ago. I— I sent for you as soon as it was safe, Watson, please believe me—’

‘The fight?’

He kept his mouth shut and his head turned. Very well, I thought; I would hear about it later. Setting it aside, I shook my head and gingerly felt around the bruises, checking. He winced every time, which was so unlike him I nearly began to panic. But this was a different Holmes now than the one I had known, for many reasons. I should be glad that he did not hide the depth of his pain from me.

Satisfied with my observation on his side, I said sternly, ‘Show me your leg now.’

He stood again, and with a quick glance to him and a hasty nod on his part, I unfastened his trousers and pulled them down enough to find a trail of ugly bruises from his hip bone down the outside of his left thigh. They were so fearful looking that I wasn’t able to restrain a gasp this time; my heart thudding in my chest, I rested my forehead on his stomach, holding him by the waist, careful not to grasp him too hard. Those bruises were deep; he must have been beaten to a pulp. 

‘Holmes.’ I was surprised to find tears in my eyes as I looked up at him. His hands were on either side of my head, threading through my hair, his eyes on mine. ‘Holmes, have you seen a doctor here?’

He shook his head. 

‘Have you seen anyone at all? A nurse?’

He shook his head, then added, ‘In Paris, yes. My leg was already a bit messed up, I am afraid, and my ribs, too. But after the fight with the ruffian here…’ He looked sheepish. ‘It’s not serious, Watson? I thought it was only normal bruising from a good fight.’

 _A good fight_. I sighed, exasperated, and stood up slowly, leaning on Holmes’s good side so as not to anger my own bad leg. ‘The bruises are fine, just extensive. But what of your leg?’

Holmes looked the other way. I tried setting his trousers up again, but he stilled my hands. 

‘Holmes,’ I repeated, this time recalling the steel I used to add to my voice in the army. 

He took in a deep breath and exhaled loudly, a stone’s throw from a harrumph, but he spoke. ‘The fight with Moriarty was… involved. He…’ He was silent for several moments, his head turned to look at the wall, and finally he just shook his head. I knew then I wasn’t going to get any specifics. I nodded, trusting he would tell me in time. And even if I never learned of it — I would still take care of him.

‘Sit down again.’ My voice was softer this time, of course it was, and when Holmes sat, I sat down next to him. He looked an odd sight, his shirt unbuttoned completely, his vest rucked up, his trousers undone and hanging off his hips. But when he looked at me, his eyes were fearful, and I thought nothing of his dress at all.

‘I’ll always limp, Watson.’ His eyes searched mine. Our hands met at his knee. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to run again.’

I nodded, not knowing how else to react, and thought about what all of this meant for him. A Sherlock Holmes unable to return to his country, to his city, barely even able to walk. Next to me sat a broken man, one might say half a man compared to the one I once knew.

I brought his hand to my lips. This was a man who had sacrificed everything to keep his country safe, who selflessly let go of his life with his one companion, with no certainty of surviving, in order to protect him. This was a man who now had no home and a broken body. I kissed his hand, willing myself not to shed a tear, to be the brave one as he expected me to be. 

‘You are a marvel,’ I hushed, and it came out more hoarse and heartfelt than I meant it to. There was a sharp intake of breath next to me. I felt Holmes’s eyes on me but could not meet them, only settled for closing my eyes and kissing his hand, then holding it to my chest. When I opened them again, Holmes pulled his hand from my grasp and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and the two of us leaned back on the couch, my hand on the knee of his bad leg, gentle but there. 

Holmes turned towards me and laid his head on my good shoulder. I turned and kissed what I could reach of his head and contented myself to just sit with him for a few more moments, before anything could separate us again. 

—

We sat on the couch together until I began to get a twinge in my back. Sitting up, I felt him stir beside me and realised he had fallen asleep. How little did he sleep now that he could doze so easily? 

‘Stay here,’ I murmured, patting his knee. Even if he were asleep, and it looked like he was, mostly, I knew he would still hear me. ‘I’ll make tea.’

He nodded, eyes still closed, and when I stood from the couch (masking a grimace), I watched him turn himself to his good side and stretch the length of the couch. As it was, it was far too short for him, but he didn’t seem to mind terribly; he snuffled into the back of the couch and exhaled loudly. I pet his shoulder once more and meandered to the poor excuse of a kitchen to make tea. I was quite accustomed to wasting tea at Holmes’s expense, I mused as I drank my newly cold cuppa and poured his out. How nice it was to have his tea to waste at all — for so long now I hadn’t had the chance. 

I set the kettle going once more and ventured a guess where he kept the tea, and there it was, the cabinet above the stove, in fact the only cabinet, in a jar covered in unreadable German. I smelled it; it wasn’t a bit fresh, or even my or Holmes’s favourite, I noted, but it would have to do. I wondered if there were any good British tea in the city, and if so, how I would ever manage to find it or even afford it. 

Holmes had been here nearly a month, he had said. It seemed he had finished his business in Paris, where he had read the papers and discovered he could only return to England to risk imprisonment or worse. But that was in Paris. Why had he immigrated to Berlin? I knew of his French heritage, had heard him speak French on multiple occasions; but when had he ever expressed any interested in living in Germany? I had deduced he was knowledgeable of German, from various infinitesimal comments he had made in our habitance together, but for the life of me I couldn’t recall any comments about visiting Germany, much less living in Berlin. I would have to ask him when he awoke. Perhaps a family secret? Or possibly — could a case have brought him here? 

I looked over at him on the couch. He hadn’t moved; perhaps he really was asleep. In the time since I had first entered this place, he had not seemed the Holmes I knew and recognised, the Holmes on the hunt. There was no hint of that great Detective in him, that I had seen. Had he possibly given that up, now that he couldn’t be in London? Now that his condition was… what it was? I found it hard to believe, damn near difficult to imagine, but I also doubt I could have ever pictured him in the state he was now. Moriarty had changed a lot of things, it seemed. Holmes had had to adapt. He would have to adapt.

The kettle whistled, and I took it off the heat so as not to wake him. If Holmes must adapt, so I would along with him. I knew that now: wherever he went was precisely where I needed to be. I would follow him anywhere, to the ends of the earth, if needs must. Even to Berlin, this most foreign of cities, it seemed.


	3. Wessen Blut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reunion continues.

Just as I was pouring the tea, I heard Holmes enter the kitchen, fully buttoned up and dressed once more, and sit primly in his chair from before.

I looked at him as I brought over his tea; he had slept. His eyes were a bit red, his hair sleep-mussed. He looked very handsome, and it occurred to me that I could think that now, perhaps even express it to him. In all my years of knowing him, and thinking it, I could say it now.

But as I set his tea down in front of him, he merely glanced at me, then focussed on the tea. I felt wrong-footed. Still, we were the both of us Englishmen, so I sat across from him with my own cuppa and waited a bit.

‘I don’t know his name,’ Holmes said several moments later, his tea half gone. His fingers were twitching; did he not have any cigarettes? 

‘Whose name?’ I figured he was speaking of the ruffian with whom he’d gotten into a ‘good fight’, but that was the part I played with Holmes: the curious, mostly ignorant companion, who knew (or pretended to know) what questions to ask to stir Holmes’s genius. 

‘The ruffian’s.’ He took another sip of his tea then stood, walking across the kitchen to a ripped cardboard box sitting on the dirty floor. I could tell he couldn’t kneel, for he was bent over awkwardly, rummaging around in it. I left him to it and listened. 

He continued finally, but somewhat out of breath, ‘I was looking for a fight, in a pub I’d passed on my way to get a newspaper. The man — a working class Berliner — offered it up to me in the form of some snide comment; even in German, Watson, I knew if I didn’t fight, my dignity would have been tainted.’ As he continued rummaging around, I was grateful he couldn’t see my face grimacing at his blasé commentary. ‘I slung, and he slung, and within two punches we were each of us rather kicked out.’ He stood up finally, a small drawstring sack in his shaking hands, and limped back to his chair. 

I realised, as he placed the contents of the sack on the table, that he was rolling his own cigarettes. It was something I don’t remember seeing him do before, and I admit I watched with hungry eyes, eager to see his long, thin fingers work the tobacco and paper just so. 

‘I haven’t been able to afford my usual tobacco,’ he commented apologetically, drawing me out of my rather deep fantasies, watching his fingers work. He went on, and I forced myself to listen now, ‘This place is so drab, Watson! The tea is rank and my brand of tobacco is too expensive.’ 

I wondered where his pipe was, or if he even had a pipe. The Holmes I knew consumed tobacco like a fiend. It was admittedly bizarre to see him have to put so much work in just for cigarettes. And as he set to work rolling his first one, I confess I found it impossible to take my eyes off his hands, even as he continued his story.

‘The ruffian and I parted ways immediately; it was then I realised the German spirit, Watson.’ The first was finally rolled; he reached into his trouser pocket for a match and lit it. ‘He was hankering for a brawl as I was. I wager I could have followed him to another pub, a darker one, more suited to our tastes.’

I set my jaw, willing myself not to comment on the more suited to our tastes. Instead, I questioned, ‘Why didn’t you?’ 

Holmes drew in a long inhale and closed his eyes, shook his head. ‘I was bleeding too much.’

‘ _Holmes_.’

He smiled at this, a little lift of his lips, his eyes still closed. ‘And I realised I had no one at home to patch me up.’ My cheeks reddened. ‘And so I came home, or rather, I limped here, and decided to telegram my brother.’

Something occurred to me then. ‘So the blood on your doorstep?’

He nodded, and his eyes opened and caught mine. There was a twinkle in them, just as there had been before all this, and he had a naughty look to him. ‘Very good, Watson. Yes, the blood was all my own.’ Even I could deduce the pride in his voice at what to him must have been a simple, even obvious, observation.

I smiled, the strength of it growing as Holmes smiled back at me, even as he looked down. He held his lit cigarette in his mouth and began to roll another.

The moment passed, so I continued, ‘And you sent a telegram to your brother to send for me?’

Holmes nodded. ‘It was all finished and — I felt it was worth the risk.’

‘The risk?’ I asked, confused.

Holmes’s fingers stilled. He took another drag of his cigarette as though delaying his response. ‘I wasn’t sure you would be interested in seeing me again,’ he murmured, a confession. 

‘Holmes, whyever not?’

He looked up at me through his lashes, and I fair caught on. The papers.

‘Have you no faith in me at all?’ I muttered, mostly to myself, as I reached across the table and placed my hand on his wrist, feeling his pulse thump against my skin. ‘Holmes, we have already discussed this.’

A sad smile crossed his lips. ‘I find myself disbelieving—’

‘Disbelieving?’

A quick nod. ‘My own good luck.’

I smirked and stood again, rounding the table and bending over. He lifted his head just as I kissed him, right on the lips, like I had wanted to do for what seemed like lifetimes. Holmes was a man most understanding of actions, and this was one action I would happily repeat every day of my life, if it meant he could comprehend the vast depths of my love for him. 

‘It is nothing to do with luck, dear fellow,’ I whispered against his lips, feeling as though I was holding the very world in my grasp. I felt his eyes on mine, even as mine were on his lips. I kissed him once more, a chaste peck, and continued, ‘It is all to do with love.’

He smiled up at me with eyes as brighter than I’d ever seen them. I smiled back, running my hands through his hair, then allowed myself one more kiss to his forehead before regretfully stepping away back to my seat. It was the afternoon, after all, even if very little sunlight could make it through the miniscule, boarded-up front windows. It was more than a little unseemly to partake in such activities at this time of day, even if we were in a foreign city. 

I willed my pulse to calm and let the silence stretch out for several moments before breaking it once more with my own query. ‘Why Berlin?’ 

By this time, Holmes had just finished rolling a fourth cigarette and put out the one he had been smoking. He didn’t reply for a moment, as he put all the accoutrements back together and closed the sack. I expected him to carry it back, but he didn’t, just left it on the table, and I wagered he was too sore. My suspicions were proven right as soon as I thought them; I observed his hand travel to his leg, rubbing up and down his thigh absentmindedly, and then he spoke. 

‘Have you read anything on inversion, Watson?’ 

I shook my head. When would I have had the opportunity? It was not a topic found in my journals, not that I had been keeping up with medical journals the past few years.

‘Anything by Havelock Ellis? J.A. Symonds?’ I shook my head; those were names I had never even heard. He nodded and went on, ‘Of course not. There is… There has been research done here in Germany about such a condition, did you know?’ Once more I shook my head. He smiled; it was his _the ignorance of simpletons amuses me_ smile. I did not allow myself to bristle at seeing it directing at me, not in this moment. ‘It is a phenomenon treated quite differently here, my dear fellow, than in our old England.’

‘Treated differently?’

‘Oh yes.’ I watched as he lit another of his just-rolled cigarettes. ‘Many cases of blackmail and pub raids, but in this city… It is more rampant than even some corners of our London.’ He took a long drag and leaned back in his chair, his hand returning to his leg. ‘I found myself… forced to confront that part of myself which I had — by necessity — hidden from the world.’ Another drag. ‘And this city seemed as safe a place as any, and as it happens, much safer than anywhere in England. For me.’

I wasn’t sure how to respond; I was shocked silent by his frankness, by such vulnerable words. He continued after another few puffs, looking not at me but at the floor.

‘I can’t return to England, Watson, if I want a chance to avoid gaol. And England is your home, my dear fellow, it was our home. But I wonder…’ He paused while I hoped and prayed he was going to say what I thought he was. ‘I think I can make something of myself here, and I wonder, I mean to say, I—’ I held my breath as he released his on what sounded like a frustrated exhale. Finally he glanced up at me and held my eyes. ‘Watson, it would be an honour if you would… help me.’

‘Help you?’ I couldn’t keep the grin from growing on my face.

‘Live with me.’ He held my gaze and continued after another shaky exhale, ‘Be with me. My companion. Like you were before all of this mess.’ 

‘Yes.’

‘Stay with me, Watson,’ he begged, and he was begging — it was all there in his voice.

‘ _Yes_ , Holmes. Anywhere you like.’ I reached over and put my hand on his, the two of our hands on his thigh. ‘Whenever you like and wherever you like,’ I hushed.

His face transformed slowly into the loveliest, most pleasant and thankful face I have ever seen on him. If I kissed him again in that moment, I couldn’t be faulted in that heavy moment for my inability to restrain myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am still working diligently on this piece with few inklings about where to take it. Any thoughts? Anything you want to see our boys do in turn of the century Berlin?


	4. Brot und Bier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watson is hungry; they attempt to figure out what to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still in the works. I've got a bit more of a plan now. You commenters might notice reflections in the story -- that's because you're commenting exactly what I need to continue. I don't think this would be continued without you, so thank you.   
> (And to the commenter asking about Magnus Hirschfeld -- can't say what exactly he was doing in 1901, and trust me, I googled it, but we're eighteen years short of his Institut and still seven years short of Edward Carpenter's The Intermediate Sex. Hirschfeld was doing research for his Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen in 1901 I'm fairly positive, so perhaps... somewhere ... H&W are included.) 
> 
> To whom it may concern: next chapter might go up in rating (and if it does, the fic's rating will be changed). Here's the warning in super advance.

As the poor afternoon light was fading, it seemed my travels and the day’s events all caught up to me in the form of a loud stomach rumble. Holmes heard it; we were sat once again on the sofa, side by side, my hand resting on his thigh (I must confess we had spent the better part of an hour kissing and otherwise embracing). He chuckled at my bodily noise and clasped my hand.

‘I’ve nothing in. I had my last apple yesterday—’

‘Holmes, have you not eaten anything today?’ I admonished.

‘Neither have you, old chap.’ I let him have that one. ‘The food here…’

I was not sure how that sentence was meant to be finished, but I wouldn’t let him have an excuse not to eat. ‘Holmes, we must find you something to eat.’

‘And you, too.’ He turned to me and we looked at each other. ‘There’s a café not far that serves cheap day old bread.’ 

It wasn’t a roast cooked by Mrs Hudson, but it would do. 

I attempted tidying up some papers — merely straightening them, trying to avoid looking too closely at them for fear of what I might find, although I am not sure if pressed I could give a reason for this hesitancy — while Holmes made himself presentable. He shaved, I am sure, although I did not understand why. I knew Holmes was always fastidious about his personal cleanliness to an extreme, but I couldn’t imagine the café we were going to would expect pristine clientèle like the gentlemen’s clubs in London. I myself was past due for a shave — would he expect me to shave as well? He had never said anything on the matter of my personal grooming before, other than a comment once when we attended an opera before which he specified which particular suit I must wear. Still, I would hate for him to be embarrassed about my own appearance. It wouldn’t do for me to be unsavoury next to a man with as much grace as Holmes had. 

I was making my way to my luggage, abandoned still in the entryway, to fetch my shaving materials when Holmes emerged from the other room. He was a bit red in the face but was otherwise dressed as I had often seen him, albeit in more loosely fitted clothes and without his long coat. I thought better than to ask after it, or to comment on his reddened face, and decided to offer my arm wordlessly. He smiled, the movement not reaching his eyes in the way it had multiple times earlier, and he made no comment on my own appearance. I was not sure he would feel comfortable telling me if I were indeed not dressed as I should be, but I knew better than to ask, to save ourselves an awkward moment. I realised then that perhaps I was too concerned; my feelings, suddenly brought forth from the aether into which I had lain them, were blinding my good sense. Realising this, I tucked it all away and focussed on Holmes before me, alive once more. 

I watched him, his eyes on the floor, as he made his way to me a bit slower than usual (another infinitesimal fact I chose to ignore). Once he reached my side, he took my arm, which was quite a good sign and made my heart soar. I smiled at him and patted his hand, and he let me lead the way out.

The walk to the café was more than I could imagine was comfortable for him. This wasn’t London, and even in a setting in which I knew no one and no one knew me, I didn’t take Holmes’s arm like we sometimes used to walk. He was quiet, and I could tell his mood had changed. There was a stiffness in him. It took all of my effort not to believe the rigidity lay in his regard for me. I held my tongue — we had talked about emotions enough for one day. I pushed forward and let my hand briefly touch his as they swayed while we walked. It was a brisk spring day, or rather evening, and the wind did much to clear my moody thoughts. Holmes was once more by my side, and I let his presence fill me for the entirety of our silent walk. 

Once at the café, I stayed silent as Holmes ordered for me ( _‘Brot und Bier, danke’_ ) and paid with a handful of coins. I followed him to a table outside, where a few Berliners were sitting at other tables, some quiet, reading newspapers, others chattering animatedly in German. 

The bread was a bit hard but nothing to sneeze at, but the beer was the best I’d had in all my days. I was rarely given to enjoy beer, as I much preferred brandy and the wines which Holmes likewise preferred, but this beer was deserving. I drank half of it in the first gulp, surprised, and when I looked up, Holmes was smirking.

‘Good beer,’ I said dumbly, and covered the useless comment with another bite of the bread. I watched him watch me chew. After another few bites, he spoke.

‘There might be a case.’ 

‘Oh?’

He smiled demurely. I said nothing, still eating, and pointedly looked at the bread before him. After a moment, he picked it up and took a modest bite. I nodded in praise and affirmation, and he chewed and swallowed and continued. ‘We shall see. You need to send telegrams, I imagine?’ 

‘Telegrams?’ I had finished the beer and felt the weight of it sit on my empty stomach. 

‘To Mycroft and Mrs Hudson.’ He took another bite. I blinked at him, his words catching up to me slowly.

To live with Holmes here. To move my life away from London. I had in my modest suitcase only enough clothes for less than a week and exactly one novel. The rest of my belongings — clothes, books, medical journals, trinkets collected through the years, that ship still not fully put together — remained in London. Not to mention all of Holmes’s belongings, which I had lived alongside in his absence. Some things I could certainly live without, but a few items I would prefer to see again. And my practise, abandoned at a moment’s notice for what I had thought would be a short jaunt to Germany, still lay waiting for me to return. And Mrs Hudson, our poor housekeeper left alone — what would she think? She would have no trouble letting our rooms, but I could not imagine the emotional toil it would cost her to lose me after she’d lost Holmes. She had told me on more than one lonely night that we were like sons to her. Could we really abandon her to live in this fashioned Elysium thousands of miles away? 

I had savings from my fruitful practise and from not paying rent at Baker Street (per Mycroft’s insistence after Holmes’s funeral). But those savings were rather safe in London, and I had no way of getting to them unless travelling back there. And the thought of leaving Holmes again — even for two days’ time — was devastating. 

I looked up then to find Holmes staring at me intensely. He seemed as though he had watched me take the internal journey I just had and was waiting on its result. I was not sure what to say; I looked to him for guidance. Holmes nearly always had a plan, and if one was ever lacking, it wouldn’t be for long. 

‘I am not sure the best action to take either, Watson,’ he said quietly. My heart dropped; surely he would not expect me to leave? ‘But we should first consult my elder brother. I daresay he has something in mind for me anyway.’ 

I looked at Holmes. He looked sheepish, almost, as though Mycroft had said something or promised something that Holmes didn’t care for. I nodded, awaiting another comment, but got none. 

Our bread and beer finished, Holmes led me to where I could send the telegram and waited outside while I penned one to Mycroft and another to Mrs Hudson. I left the message to Mrs Hudson short and vague, afraid to give away Holmes’s secrets, even if I wanted to shout to the world that _my Sherlock Holmes is alive and we are once again side by side_. I would have to trust that Mycroft would do the right thing and tell Mrs Hudson.

The telegram to Mycroft was much more difficult. Not sure what I should even ask, I simply wrote, _Case going well, any further instructions send to address_ and hoped his Holmesian mind would translate and reply in a timely manner. I had an idea what he would suggest but prayed it would not come to any kind of separation between Holmes and me. We had only just been reunited; I was not sure my heart could take any further strain, and strain it would if I were to part with Holmes ever again. 

The telegrams sent, my fate in the air for the night, Holmes and I hobbled back together to his meagre lodgings. It was growing dark, and on the last block, Holmes nearly tripped and immediately caught himself on my arm. I stopped briefly, silent, and put my hand on his, perched still on my arm. He faked a quick smile at me, a swift upturning of his lips without any emotion, then continued looking straight ahead. There was a flare of pain in my chest at the sight of him not at his best, but I steadfastly carried on. 

We set off once more, this time with him clutching me as though to remain upright. If I had looked at him, I knew I would have seen a poorly masked grimace. This was not the Holmes I had known, and I knew better than to embarrass him by exhibiting any pity. Pity I did have, or at least some of it, but we both were upright gentlemen, and I remembered how I hated the pitying glances I received at being invalided and plopped back in London. I was determined not to afford him the same treatment, even if seeing him this affected broke my heart. 

When we finally arrived back at his digs and were once more inside, he sat swiftly on the chair I myself had awoken upon, and now I understood the purpose of its placement. As I let him rest and catch his breath, my only comment a light hand briefly on his shoulder, I brought my suitcase into the sitting room and placed it on the sofa.

A winded voice echoed through the place, ‘The bedroom has a wardrobe.’

Without looking back at Holmes, I took his comment as the invitation it was and wordlessly carried my suitcase into the single bedroom, the same room Holmes had disappeared into earlier to shave. The room was small and as dusty and damp as the rest of the place. There was barely room for a bed and a lamp; a mirror lay on the wall by the door, cracked and nearly opaque. Across from the bed was a small wardrobe, which I noticed upon opening was nearly empty. I filled it with my few garments, my heart bursting at the mere sight of our nightshirts hanging together. It was a miracle, wasn’t it? I didn’t let myself have a moment, though, and turned to look at the bed.

It was hardly bigger than the mat I slept on in my army days, with only a threadbare sheet on it and a pillow with more stains than clean space. As much as I wanted it to, I was not sure the bed could hold two men. Or at least, it certainly wouldn’t without a fair amount of … embracing. And I doubted the sofa would suit either of us at the moment. 

My things sorted, I wandered back to Holmes, who still was sat in the entryway, staring at the wall and seemingly deep in thought. After a moment, he looked up.

‘Do not pity me, Watson,’ he said in a chilled voice. ‘I am not to be pitied, that is the one thing I will not be able to stomach. Any care, any affection, yes, but not your pity. Never your pity.’

‘My dear man, I would never—’

‘Swear to me.’

I grabbed his hand, wishing I could kneel but knowing my knees better. ‘I do not pity you, Holmes,’ I said firmly. Looking up at me, his eyes searched mine frantically. ‘I could never. As long as you give me no reason to.’

His eyes bore into mine until he finally nodded once, his jaw set. I nodded mutely back at him.

I dropped his hand and he stood then, eyeing me as he leaned closer. ‘There is only one bed.’ 

I said nothing, just looked at him.

‘Neither of us are fit to sleep on the sofa.’

I let the silence spin out, the implication of what he was saying surrounding us. Then, softly: ‘The answer is yes, Holmes.’ 

A grin broke out on his face, more joyful than I had ever seen him, and I felt the muscles of my face stretch to match his. The bed was ours, and I feel we had deserved it.


	5. sich nähern, sich immer nähern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes & Watson share a bed non-platonically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, rating goes up in this chapter. Nothing plotty happens (other than romantically & passionately) -- so can be skipped if need be.

I followed Holmes into the bedroom as we wordlessly prepared for bed. It was still quite early for both of us, but it seemed we had silently agreed it was time. The bed was small but loomed over us as we undressed and changed, our backs to each other. It was as though the coming change to our relationship — whatever might come of sharing a bed in love, a change even beyond the multitude kisses we had shared throughout the afternoon and evening — were an added weight in the air. 

Holmes got into the bed first. It was a rather nasty looking thing, with a sheet upon it that wasn’t quite white but not grey either and a matching sheet nearly too thin to count as cover. But as Holmes got between them, head on one half of the pillow and at the very edge of the bed, it suddenly looked like the most inviting spectacle I had ever seen. 

Holmes’s raven-coloured hair, grown longer than I’d remembered, fanned out on the pillow. His nightshirt was quite too big on him, and white, which resulted in his pale neck and shoulder and collarbone laid bare for my eyes to feast upon. He looked up at me, his eyes a pale blue-green, a hunger in them that I recognised in myself. He waited patiently for me; I wondered how long he had waited for this very moment. The weight of all that this meant on my shoulders, I climbed into bed with him. 

It was awkward. Two men in a bed meant for one — it was tight. Because of my shoulder and my leg, I was limited to lying on one side, maybe my back if necessary. It seemed Holmes was limited as well. It took a few movements, both of us situating ourselves to the best of our abilities, but when we found a position, it clicked. 

I lay on my right side, facing the wall, with Holmes in front of me in the same position. My right arm was somewhat above our heads, on the pillow, his under him. I pressed my face into the back of Holmes’s neck and let out a bone-deep exhale. In front of me, Holmes hummed and pulled my left around around him and slid himself back so that we were pressed together chest to knocking knees. I shuddered and splayed my left hand low on his stomach and kissed the back of his neck. In that sad excuse for a bed, with Holmes pressed against the front of me, our chests rising and falling together, I felt I was finally home. Within moments, I was asleep. 

—

I awoke again in what must have been in the middle of the night, a sharp twinge in my shoulder. I looked over Holmes’s shoulder: he was awake. I had to move my arm or risk a useless limb the next day, but it was still under Holmes’s head, and I didn’t want to startle him. 

The pain overruled after a few moments. I kissed his hairline and squeezed his hip, mindful of the bruises I knew were there. ‘Holmes,’ I hushed against his skin. 

He hummed and turned his head to look at me.

‘I need to move my arm.’

‘Well, move it, then,’ he replied, and turned back to lay his head on my arm.

I chuckled and let myself kiss the top of his spine, which in the night had miraculously been exposed. ‘Holmes,’ I tried again.

He let out a low hum, almost a purr, and arched into me. The movement freed my arm briefly; I sat up a bit and flexed it, then propped my head up to look down at Holmes, who had turned more on his back and was looking up at me. He looked sleepy, as though he had indeed slept a little (a fact for which I was grateful), and he had an ornery twinkle in his eyes. My heart pounded as he turned more and lifted his left hand to cup my cheek.

‘Watson,’ he whispered, and I lost myself to his eyes and fell forward, pressing my lips to his. He was waiting for such a movement; our lips met, parted, and in a moment our tongues were brushing alongside each other’s and I was straightening myself and he himself so that I was fully atop him. 

My hands drifted up and down before resting, one on his shoulder, the other in his hair, as I took his lips over and over and over. He was humming, then moaning, then began to squirm under me, until I sat up a bit for air. 

‘ _Watson_ ,’ he gasped, and I latched onto his jaw, his neck. ‘John.’

I groaned and shifted myself. His arms came up around me as I pressed into him; he shook as our erect members met with only our nightshirts between us. 

‘John.’

I sat up on my elbows on either side of his shoulders, my own shoulder be damned, to look down at him. His hair was wild, his cheeks a beautiful rouge, his eyes remarkably bright even as pupilly black as they were. I captured his lips again, once, a quick pull, my heart pounding as he groaned again and fully arched, pressing his torso against mine, his head against the pillow. He was a sight like none I had ever seen, and I have never wanted anything more fiercely than I wanted him in that moment. 

‘Holmes,’ I began. He turned his head and I kissed down his neck, intent on marking him. His legs spread so that I was between them, a movement which pressed our erections even closer together. I wanted to rub off on him, to rub our pricks together, but I had to ask. ‘Holmes, is this alright?’

He opened his mouth but only a soft whimper came out as I bit on his neck. I watched him lick his lips and try again. ‘For the love of God, John, I believe you can call me my Christian name now.’

Smirking, I bit harder then sucked harshly on the skin. ‘Sherlock.’

He arched again below me and let out a loud moan. I continued marking him, determined not to go any further and not to move my hips until he answered my question.

‘Sherlock,’ I repeated.

He nodded, licking his lips again and panting almost worryingly hard. ‘Yes, John, yes.’ I groaned and rolled my hips, nearly fainting at how good he felt against me. ‘ _Please!_ ’

I sat up a bit, separating our chests but not our hips, and rocked forward. I watched his face and rocked forward again. Even through our scant clothes, I could feel the head of his erection against mine; the feeling was heady, and overwhelming, but not as overwhelming as the sight of Holmes underneath me, overcome by pleasure.

His eyes were closed, his face strained, his head thrown back against the pillow. It looked painful, nearly, but I understood it: it was years and years of desire and want culminating in this moment, in this shared movement, coming together like this, pressed together in our most intimate of places. A mark revealed itself on the side of his neck, a mark my mouth had created. I could feel his heart pounding in his chest and felt my own match it beat for beat.

‘Sherlock.’ I lowered myself onto my elbows once more and kissed his lips. I fed every desire I ever had into him, through my lips to his, and felt him respond to me with a whimper and a raised leg around my thigh. I felt his erection swell below mine, against mine, and let off the kiss to pant against his lips and thrust harder. 

He cried out and then his hands were between us, shaking, frantically pushing my nightshirt up and gathering his to push it up as well; I stilled and backed off only enough to let him get our erections together with nothing between them. Finally, our nightshirts bunched up around our chests, I lowered my hips once more and rutted against him with nothing at all between us. His hand came to his mouth and I watched him lick it, understanding, and stilled my hips as he reached between us and held both of us in his hand. 

‘Sherlock—’

He nodded and kissed me, his hand and hips moving to drive me to completion. I could only kiss him as much as I could manage and thrust into his grasp, and I could still feel his hard prick pulsing against mine, his breath stuttering against my lips, and I closed my eyes and fell quickly into my end. 

‘John!’ he cried as I began to spurt against him. I heard myself growling, unable to stop it, and pushed and pushed and pushed against him, wanting to be nearer, ever nearer, and was surprised to feel him pulse and arch and, with a long, almost high-pitched whine, he came against me. The moment was prolonged, carried us outward together, until my limbs became heavy and I collapsed once more (carefully) to his side. 

We spent several moments catching our breath and still partly entwined, otherwise one of us might fall off the bed. I looked at his chest and could make out, in the shadows, our seed intermixed on his stomach; I looked down to find the same remnants on my own nightshirt. I began to laugh, a low rumble beginning at what felt like the innermost part of my chest and spiralling outwards. 

I heard him chuckle next to me, still breathing heavily, and I leaned over once more to kiss his cheek, his jaw, his chin. How many years have I wanted this man? How many times have I wanted only to reach over, to reach out and touch his shoulder, his hair, his knee, his cheek? How many sleepless nights had I spent attempting to define why I was grieving so deeply, why I was still, months on, mourning this man? I worked it out in the end, when I thought it was too late, but here we were, together, closer than we had ever been. I looked down at Holmes as his breath finally calmed to its normal state. He looked back at me with an open expression, completely vulnerable and feeling as though he were thinking the same I was, and I cupped his cheek and said against his lips, ‘I love you, Sherlock Holmes.’

I watched his eyes flicker and dance, a smile toil at his lips before spreading into a grin, and he said back to me, apparent wonder in his voice, ‘And I you, my John.’

Our kisses blurred into each other after that, and I believe we fell asleep again, pressed together as such.


	6. den Morgen danach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after; a knock on the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still going -- reworking the next chapter as we speak. Some plot will happen, if we're lucky. To the readers who comment every chapter: You do not understand the strength you give me to continue this.

When I awoke again, it must have been dawn. I heard birds and the city beginning to wake. It sounded familiar but different than what I was used to; then I remembered where I was. 

Holmes. 

My chest constricted with emotion. Holmes was alive. I reached for him, but the bed was empty save me. The sheet was bunched up around my waist, the pillow fallen off the bed altogether. It was then that I remembered what we had done the night before. I felt my cheeks warm and my prick stir at the explicit images that came to mind, the intensity and weightiness of such an interaction with Holmes, the man I had yearned for for years, but chief in my mind was worry, for Holmes had not stayed. 

Eager to see him again, to make sure he was alright and — I admit I had to be sure this wasn’t a dream — to see if he was indeed alive and here with me, I rolled out of the cot and dressed quickly in the trousers from the day before and a new shirt and made haste to the sitting room.

I found Holmes sat on the sofa, his bad leg stretched out, his other bent at the knee. Newspapers flooded the room; a newspaper was in his hand, more discarded on either side of him on the smallish sofa, and seemingly dozens more all along the floor and even behind the sofa, as if he had thrown some over his shoulder in dismay or carelessness. His back was me, as I was behind the sofa, so I was able to take it all in without interruption: his charmingly sleep-mussed hair, his wrinkled white shirt, his hauntingly upright posture, his intense focus on the task at hand.

Needless to say, it was a sight for sore eyes. I had a feeling then that Holmes was back in his element. The sight of papers strewn all about inspired in me a feeling of familiar exasperation, for it was not the first time I had seen such a mess created by Holmes himself. The difference here was time: now I welcomed such a mess, because it meant that Holmes was on the hunt again. Even if it would fall to me to clean it up, as our dear landlady was not here (a thought I did not allow myself to sit on). 

I stood there, one unending moment leading into the next, and watched Holmes read the newspaper he held in front of his face, his head moving back and forth, and knew those grey eyes were passing quickly back and forth over the text. I ached to reach out for him, just to touch him, for in that moment he seemed untouchable, even aethereal. And I thought of last night, how he had arched under me, how he had given himself over to such intense pleasure and how I had done the same. Did he wish for that sort of activity to repeat itself? And if so, how soon? Previously, I had assumed Holmes had no interest in such activities or even in any romantic entanglement. Now, on the other side of such a night, I wondered what his appetite might be, and if it were possible that it might match mine. I was no longer a young man, I admit, but I had wanted Holmes for so long, I think my body would be up for anything, if I only knew he wanted it too. 

The newspaper in Holmes’s hands fluttered down loudly. Without turning around, he said in what might have been an amused tone, ‘Whatever precipice you're dangling over, Watson, jump off it or back down. You're making the hairs on my neck stand on end just hovering there.’

I smiled, trance broken, and walked over to the back of the sofa as he picked up the newspaper to his right. I placed a hand on his right shoulder and bent to kiss the crown of his head.

‘Merely thinking.’

‘Brooding, it sounded like,’ he replied and brought the newspaper up to his eyeline again, opening it. I knew he wasn’t paying it as much attention as he would have liked me to believe. I leaned over the sofa, over his shoulder, to kiss his cheek. The angle was terrible, but that close I could see him blush and smirk. Finally he turned his face to mine; his eyes roved over my face quickly, before falling on my lips, then rising up to my eyes. I smiled at him, bit back some sentimental drivel that seemed out of place in this moment, and when he leaned into me, I kissed him. 

I could have hovered there for an eternity, bent awkwardly over the sofa and Holmes’s shoulder, if it meant I could continue kissing him. However, reality unfortunately set in after only a few moments; my shoulder and leg twinged in unison, and Holmes pulled away with a soft hum. 

‘There’s tea on the table,’ he said and turned back to his newspaper. I released my hands of him and hobbled over for some lukewarm, medium-grade tea, which should have been a lousy thought, but I couldn’t find it in myself to be too irritated. For it was tea in the presence of Holmes, and I think I could have withstood drinking sour milk if it meant I could watch Holmes work. 

Not wanting to ‘hover’ over Holmes, I cleared some room on the sofa next to him, a good distance between us, and grabbed one of the papers. It was all in German — of course it was. I closed it and placed it in my lap and sipped the tea. It wasn’t bad.

After several minutes of silence, Holmes said, without lowering the newspaper held in front of his face, ‘Hamlet is playing this afternoon at the Luisen Theater.’

I smiled into the cup. ‘Oh?’

He lowered the newspaper and turned to me, a smile in his eyes. ‘Have you any plans for today, Watson?’

‘None whatsoever, other than you.’

I watched a pleased smile spread across Holmes’s face. ‘Good. And tonight is Wagner.’ The newspaper was raised once more, covering his face. I wondered if he had the money for two concert events on a Sunday in this city; I wondered if that was the real reason Holmes had come here. Even I had heard of Berlin’s renowned reputation for music. I thought of Holmes, defeated in Paris with no hope of returning to London. Had he come here for solace in the music which was so important to him? If Holmes could not be the great Consulting Detective, would it not make sense for him to turn to music instead? 

‘Is this for a case?’ I asked after I’d finished a second cup of tea. The mess of papers around Holmes seemed to have grown; it didn’t seem possible, but it looked as if there were more newspapers now. 

Holmes hummed, not an answer to my question at any rate, and continued on his speed-reading run. He didn’t even look up at me, just emitted that one grunt to my question. It was too much like the Holmes I knew for it to sit comfortably with me: I wondered how long it would take for me to be left in the dark again, for Holmes to leave again without giving me anything to go on. 

My mood began to sour as I thought this through. Holmes had gone on a manhunt while I believed him dead. I mourned him harder than a man my age should have, and now, knowing better, I wondered if I could have assisted him. This was a case like the others were, and Holmes went through it alone, and got irreparably hurt. Could I have helped him? Could I have prevented any of his bruises, his injuries? 

A knock at the door startled me out of my dark thoughts. I looked at Holmes, watched him straighten and pale. He didn’t move, his spine frighteningly stiff, his eyes on mine. He clearly was not expecting anyone; in fact, I don’t think I had ever seen him so panicked. I nodded wordlessly and stood and went to the door, preparing myself for I don’t know what.


	7. Eine Depesche

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A telegram arrives; Holmes & Watson discuss its contents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm nearly a chapter ahead of this -- still not abandoned (wow!). Casually going to take off the Granada Holmes fandom marker on this, because I'm beginning to morph them into B.C. and M.F. mostly accidentally. (To the commenter who mentioned this very thing last chapter: Yep.) Finally, don't mind the plot; mind the love & touching.

I opened the door after steeling myself; it was just a telegram. I thanked the young lad (in German, one of the few words I knew), breathed deeply, and brought the telegram to Holmes.

At the sight of the envelope in my hand, he visibly relaxed a bit and made a motion towards it. Understanding his cue, I opened it.

‘It’s just an address,’ I said.

‘Signed _V_?’

I nodded.

‘It is from Mycroft. He will expect you there post haste.’

I looked down at the address again. The address was for here in Berlin. Without a map, I would have no way of finding it… 

When I looked up again, Holmes was in the bedroom, getting dressed. 

‘I’ll walk you there. I have an errand to make.’

‘An errand, Holmes?’

He splashed water on his face and dried it with a shirt. ‘Yes, just a small errand.’

I frowned. I was never one to be so controlling that I had to know where Holmes was and what he was doing at all times — Holmes was his own man, something everyone who ever met him understood — and so he didn’t need me to peek into his personal affairs any more than he allowed me to. But his vagueness now, in this foreign city, after so soon a reunion (and just after last night’s rather intimate activities), cut me the wrong way. 

Dressed, and looking as good as he ever did before all this mess, his hair slicked back and armed in a suit which slimmed him even more and gave him his usual untouchable air, he returned to the sitting room. ‘Ready?’ he asked, looking around for something and notedly avoiding my gaze. He finally found it, a newspaper it seemed, one out of the myriad mess of papers in the room. 

‘Holmes,’ I said, not moving from my spot. My voice came out gruffer than I meant it to, even in my emotional state, and I lifted my chin when his eyes finally rose to mine.

He fixed me a curious stare, his brows furrowed. I felt myself soften; being so gruff would not do either of us any good. ‘Watson, what is it?’

‘Why did your brother reply to my telegram with an address?’

He heaved a sigh. ‘Is that not a question for my brother? Which he will undoubtedly answer when—’

I shook my head and interrupted him, ‘No, I think you know.’

Holmes stared at me and stared at me, something happening on his face, as though he were thinking through some process. There was some emotion in his eyes that he was letting me see, and I was nearly taken aback by it, whatever it was, surprised at its vulnerability. He looked as if he were in pain when he replied, ‘Mycroft has a plan, I am sure of it. I daresay I’ve an inkling.’

‘And will you let me know what it is, Holmes?’ I wanted to add, _Will you allow me to know just this one piece of knowledge, this one morsel which could potentially affect both of our lives_ , but I bit my tongue.

Holmes looked down, somewhere in the vicinity of my shoulder. He held the newspaper he had picked up in his hands, crossed in front of him. He shook his head.

‘Holmes—’

‘John, you will have to go back to London,’ he said all at once on an exhale. I closed my mouth. He still was staring a hole in my sleeve. ‘My cousin is buying your practise, but you will still have to pack up 221B and tell Mrs Hudson and anyone else who would suspect your sudden disappearance to another country. Mycroft will order you to leave again. He has probably already bought a ticket for you.’

I nearly begged _But not for you?_ before I remembered that Holmes couldn’t return with me. That he was not allowed back to England. That, in order to stay with him later, I would have to leave him behind now. 

I swallowed against a dry throat and rasped, ‘Then I will do it, if I must.’

‘I will not have you die with me,’ he said adamantly, and looked at me, fire in his eyes. ‘Mycroft will give you some story to tell everyone. That’s his job to iron it out; I have given him a few ideas, but he knows … better. He will send you back to London today, I am sure.’

I took a step towards Holmes, unable to keep myself from him, for his eyes had fallen, his face hardened to keep emotion in. He looked miserable, utterly miserable, and my heart sank in my chest. I placed a hand on his shoulder, startled to find him trembling ever so slightly, and cupped his cheek. ‘Not today,’ I whispered. ‘I will not leave you today. I have to see Hamlet with you, right?’

Holmes sniffled wetly and looked at me for a moment. ‘And Wagner.’ 

I let out a surprised laugh and kissed his forehead. He leaned against me and closed his eyes. ‘Tomorrow,’ I murmured into his hair. ‘It is Sunday, Holmes. I’ll board the train tomorrow. If that’s even what Mycroft has planned for me.’

‘It is the only logical thing,’ he replied sullenly. ‘You have affairs you must attend to.’ 

I nodded and kissed his hair and wrapped one arm around his shoulders, wanting to hold him. He went willingly, clutching my sides, an action which warmed my chest. Gods above, he looked heartbroken, melancholic, as though he were about to face something he had dreaded for a long time. Maybe he was. A part of me was somewhat pleased at the evidence that Holmes felt something so strong but most of all that it was tied to me, to him missing me when I had to leave. It soothed something deep and thorny within me, for it showed that his feelings matched mine; for I imagined my heart would rip into shreds when we parted again tomorrow. But then again — what an ever sweeter reunion we would have on the other side of it. 

As Holmes continued to lean against me, his hands running restlessly between my sides and my back, I wondered at the level of emotion he was allowing on display, and then I wondered something. ‘Holmes,’ I muttered into his ear, wishing to placate him, ‘I will come back. You know that, right?’ He straightened and looked at me. ‘I will return as soon as I can. Of course I will come back to you.’

‘Oh, Watson,’ he murmured. The anguish on his face was apparent, but I was thankful that at least there were no tears. ‘Only I won’t be here when you return.’

I swallowed. ‘What do you mean?’

He shook his head. ‘There was no case. Mycroft is not pleased to have me in this city, and as I depend on him for the time being for any livelihood…’ He shook his head again; his hands fell from my side. ‘There is… something for me in the south of France.’

‘A case?’

Holmes shook his head. ‘A house. A family estate. My dear grandmother’s home.’ 

Holmes had mentioned French in his blood before. I admit it was easier to imagine him in France than in Berlin, but then again, I must admit to myself that I still did not know Holmes as well as I would like to believe. Still, no case in Berlin? Perhaps I had been correct: it seemed more and more likely now that Holmes had come to Berlin not only for the research being undertaken here for those of … his own kind, but also for the city’s exquisite, world-renowned concerts. 

I let my hands brush his neck, cupped the back of it, still keeping him close. ‘You do not seem very grateful for a home in France, my fellow.’

He chuckled and shook his head. ‘It is not that.’

‘Do you wish to stay in Berlin?’

He dithered. I paused, my hand stilled from its stroking of his hair.

‘Your cousin is buying my practise?’

He nodded.

‘For a good sum?’

He smirked. ‘As good a one as I ordered him to.’

‘ _Holmes_.’ 

He laughed, and I could not keep myself from drawing him nearer and kissing the side of his head. ‘If I return—’ A pained expression overtook Holmes’s face, and I immediately corrected myself in a stern voice, ‘ _When_ I return with my savings, and the sum you gifted me by proxy, we ought to buy better digs.’

His eyes found mine, searching, and I continued to gaze at him, willing him to understand the length to which I was committed to him. Anywhere, wherever he would be.

‘I have a flat in mind,’ he said after a moment. I grinned at him as he blushed, his eyes flicking to my eyes and down and back to my eyes, a smiling growing on his lips.

‘And a bigger bed,’ I ventured, and was rewarded with a small, delighted laugh and a deeper blush. He stroked my cheek and thumbed my moustache; I gathered his hand in mine and kissed it. Together through anything, no matter what, I wanted to promise him. I could not leave him now; surely he must understand that. Holmes the great Mind must see that I could not possibly live without him now. And if he didn’t see it, I promised myself then that I would show him, every day, every minute and hour, until he believed it as strongly as I meant it.


	8. In fernem Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watson meets Mycroft; Holmes & Watson attend concerts.

Arm in arm, and accompanied by the soft taps of my cane on my right and Holmes’s on his left, we left the poor digs once more. I let Holmes guide me to the address to which Mycroft had bid us, content to rely on his inner map, which I am sure he had built within hours of setting foot in the city. The streets were busier than the day before, the people not altogether more foreign than the crowds in London. The sun was high in the sky, hardly a cloud in sight, and a nice, light blue; the wind was pleasant, and Holmes’s arm in mine was warm and comfortable. It all left me with an overall feeling of pleasantness, so much so that I felt that no matter what would come tomorrow, Holmes and I were together today, and that was more than I could have said for the past two years. Once again, a feeling of intense gratitude at my luck and the past day’s turn of events overtook me. I squeezed Holmes’s arm in mine. He hummed and patted my arm in his. 

After a minute’s walking, I broke the companionable silence. ‘What errand have you to run?’ 

I felt that the air between us had cleared, it seemed, and I knew surely — or otherwise assuredly hoped — that he would answer my question now.

‘There is a man I must see,’ he answered surprisingly cheerfully, sparing me a quick glance before looking straight ahead again. ‘He has been researching something quite revolutionary indeed.’

‘Oh?’

‘I believe you will meet him soon enough, Watson,’ he answered, and the finality in his tone bid me to leave it. It was a mysterious answer, but Holmes had always had an ear for mystery. I would have to trust him to be safe — I would not allow myself to overpower him. It was not and never had been my role. 

‘I must find something to eat, Holmes,’ I admonished after we passed yet another vendor trying to sell me meat. 

‘Not on the street. This meat is dreadful. After your date with Mycroft, we will luncheon.’

My stomach rumbled at the promise that couldn’t come soon enough. 

—

The address was to a club, not totally unlike that of Mycroft’s Diogenes Club, which both surprised me and didn’t at all. I could not guess the histories of either club, whether they be related or not, but knew that Mycroft Holmes would be able to sniff out such a club in another city for such a peculiar meeting as this one might be. 

We stopped in the foyer, our arms once again separated. 

‘You are not joining me?’ I asked Holmes under my breath. 

He shook his head. It was strange, to me, that Holmes would not be interested in seeing his relation after said relation had travelled to another country for him, but I also understood that the Holmes brothers were in no way typical relations. Perhaps Holmes was not interested in letting his brother see his condition (he had rather visibly limped at my side on our walk to the place); or perhaps they had seen each other enough; or perhaps the two of them in the same room would raise some question from someone. I did not ask, for it was not truly my business, and so I bid Holmes farewell with a simple, curt nod and a glance that he matched which communicated _very soon we will be together again_. He had agreed to wait for me outside the club, as there happened to be a bench across the street on which he could sit and rest his leg (he had assured me that his meeting with the mysterious researcher would not last long). 

I was led by a lad into some back room, and there waiting for me, sure enough, was Holmes’s elder brother. He stood at a desk which was sat in the middle of the room, a largeish window the only source of light. He looked the same as he had a few days before, when he had sent me here in the first place. It was strange to see him again here, and stranger still to realise that it had been only a few days, not years, since we last saw each other.

‘Good afternoon, Doctor Watson.’

‘Mr Holmes,’ I replied warmly, shaking his hand. We two had rarely been alone together, so the familiarity was rather stiff. Just as well, as I did not quite understand the man before me, and wasn’t sure I would ever be allowed to do. I felt a great debt to him, though, for pointing me in the direction of his still-alive brother, and tried to let that warmth not consume my businesslike composition. I did not want to embarrass the man with any unwelcome overfamiliarity.

‘I trust your stay in Berlin is going well?’ The tone was too airy for what lay under the words, and I immediately understood from it that we were to keep this interaction entirely void of my Holmes, his present, living condition, and especially the events of the past day. 

‘Quite well, thank you. I owe you a debt for directing me towards this… case.’

Mycroft nodded and smiled in a soothing, knowing sort of way. ‘I trust you know the reason for my sending you.’

I smirked. ‘Quite.’

He nodded, looking at his pocket watch, the movement finalising his breezy demeanour. ‘Doctor Watson, now that some truth has come to light, I must discuss with you some … trivialities.’

Trivialities? 

‘Please do,’ I replied, leaning against my cane.

Mycroft stared at me a moment before speaking. ‘My brother is a dead man. In the eyes of the law right now, and in the future, if ever the present situation were to be found out.’ 

I nodded. 

Mycroft continued, his voice heavy with foreboding, very nearly a schoolmaster scolding a young boy. 

I was not to let anyone else be privy to the knowledge that not only Holmes was alive, but also that he was currently in Germany, or that he planned to go to France. While with Holmes in public, I was to abide by Holmes’s own alias, which I was told to be ‘Sigerson’, and further, I was to be quite careful of outing him here. Mycroft warned me that even one slip-up, one hushed ‘Holmes’ in the man’s ear, could mean the worst, especially when he, in his words, ‘had no ears and eyes on this blasted city’. 

Once in London, I was to tell everyone that I was offered an opportunity to go back home to my ancestral Scotland, to assist with a family practise, and indeed, I was told, the elder Holmes had set up a practise there with some distant cousin of mine whom I hadn’t seen since I was a wee child. My cousin was informed only that I needed an alibi (Lord knows what he would think of it all; knowing him, if offered a running tab in his pub, he would agree to anything), and Mycroft had an agent willing to sit in the community and watch it the next few months to see if any trouble would come of it. I was to tell Mrs Hudson this and nothing more; Mycroft would not budge, even when I implored him that she would love to know that Holmes was alive. 

He informed me that my belongings had already been packed (I ruffled at the thought of someone rifling through my things and Holmes’s, but I suppose I would have to be grateful for the expediency of it) and that my practise was already sold. My return to London, by the looks of it, was to be carried out for two reasons: to keep up appearances with the story Mycroft had crafted, and to personally fetch my savings and the money from the sale of my practise. I was fine with a quick trip — the weight at the thought of being so separated from Holmes again had begun to settle in my stomach. Mycroft handed me an envelope and finished our conversation with a speech that left me quite perturbed. 

‘I do not wish to know any details of the… involvement of the pair of you,’ he said clearly but quietly, holding my gaze and standing just a bit too close. ‘I can only trust that you both are capable and will not bring about your own destruction because of … passionate … carelessness.’

I nodded dumbly, his words cutting me deep. Reality set in, as though I had been living in a dream the past two days (and in some ways, I feel I must have been). What Holmes and I did last night, even our very sentiment regarding each other, was illegal. In Germany and in England. Our love was undeniable and all-consuming, I knew, but there was a fragility to it as well. One mistake, one false move, and it could fall apart in our hands. I could lose Holmes in it as easily as he could lose me; the law could ruin either or both of us sooner than we could prepare. Modesty and due diligence would have to be forefront in our relations to each other, even when alone; it would always be there, following us, haunting us. We would have to learn to live with it, else it consumed us and separated us. To continue with each other, with our sentiment, we would have to be overcautious at every moment. It was a promise I made to myself then: that above all, Holmes’s safety must be put first.

I wondered, though, what life we could have if we immigrated to Holmes’s family home in France. No one would know us there except whatever remained of Holmes’s distant family, perhaps. But were we to stay in Berlin… I wondered how long it would take for Holmes to be recognised, or worse, for me to somehow give him away. It was a dangerous game we were playing, staying in a metropolis, surrounded by thousands of people, if not millions. People who could be anyone, people who might be likely to recognise who we were. As much as I wished to give Holmes all the concerts money could afford, I was not sure I would give up our safety to stay here.

Mycroft was still staring at me, as though waiting for a response. I did not really have one, for any promise to him to be careful seemed trite, and any promise that such carefulness would not alter what Holmes and I shared seemed distasteful. So all I could manage was a nod and a rough, ‘Thank you, Mycroft.’ 

He nodded, letting go of the envelope so that I could keep it, and replied, ‘Open that with my brother, and no sooner.’ I nodded. He straightened and, in a move surprising to his character, clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Safe travels, Doctor.’

I thanked him again and exited the room and the club as quickly as my legs could muster, my head still spinning. Holmes was, as promised, sitting on the bench across the street, and did not look up at me when I walked over to him. His eyes did, however, follow the envelope in my hand. I handed it to him. 

He pulled out a train ticket. ‘For tomorrow morning,’ he said, in awe, and handed it to me. I stared it down, disbelieving. Holmes and I still had the day together.

I looked over at him, wanting to touch him, his shoulder, his hair, anything, and found him instead with a ‘cat found the cream’ face. The rest of the somewhat bulky envelope appeared to be money. I was not acquainted with German money, but by the rigidity of Holmes’s shoulders, it must have been quite a lot of it.

‘That man,’ he whispered, folding the envelope and putting it in his coat pocket hastily. He drew a quick breath. ‘That’s enough for a week’s rent at a nicer flat, and he wishes me to go to France.’

I smiled and let myself brush his shoulder briefly. ‘He knows you.’

Holmes grunted and stood, balancing carefully on his cane. ‘I believe I promised you luncheon, my dear fellow.’

—

Holmes took me to a nicer restaurant this time, where he ordered us wine and fish. The wine was better than the fish, and better than anything else was the blush that spread on Holmes’s cheeks after his first glass. We were splurging in the middle of the day, in a foreign city, in which no one knew us (I hoped) and in which we knew no one (or only very few people, on Holmes’s side). A city which was renowned not only for its music, which we were about to partake in, but also for its somewhat unsavoury reputation, which we had also partook in the night before. I felt like a different person, in some aspects. But before me was Holmes, beside me was Holmes, and therefore I could be Watson. His Watson. 

‘My brother told you things,’ he said ominously after our first course.

I nodded, unsure what I was allowed to repeat and what Holmes had already deduced.

‘He told you that we were to be _careful_ , didn’t he?’

I nodded again. ‘We must.’ I wanted to say his name, but could not even force myself to use his alias. _Sigerson_ sounded too cold to me, too unfamiliar. 

‘We are safe in this city,’ Holmes replied softly. ‘I have done research. I have felt around; there is nothing here. We are invisible here, Watson. And even if we weren’t… We are, in the German eyes, foreigners. They would merely bid us to leave.’

I hesitated, unsure. 

‘The man to whom I spoke today — a Mr Hirschfeld — tells me that the police know of the existence of … those like … me, and we are rarely prosecuted. Watson, the police even attend balls here. Balls of a certain proclivity.’

I looked at the table, not sure what to say to such a statement. ‘And if we were to be recognised?’

‘We couldn’t possibly be.’ I looked up to find a sad smile on his face. ‘Your readership is not so strong here, Watson.’

In what could have been an insult to my livelihood turned out to be a more than welcome statement. 

‘Your brother said you go by Sigerson now.’

Holmes chortled. ‘Yes, when I require an alibi, I am somewhat Norwegian,’ he said in a very convincing foreign accent. He slipped back into his posh lilt: ‘But no one here knows, or cares, about Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr Watson.’ 

He said the last just a bit louder, as though testing me, testing the world, the crowd, and I looked around, panicked. Some heads from other tables looked up in our general direction, but just as soon lost interest and returned to their own worlds. Could we really be so safe? So invisible? 

I could not be convinced of it; but to press any further would be to draw a wedge between Holmes and myself. My promise would keep — I would not put any unnecessary danger between the two of us and the rest of the world — but I let the severity, the undercurrent of panic at being _found out_ , whatever that meant, fall to the side. Still, in the back of my mind, I knew I was and would always be on alert. But that was life with Holmes. At least I would not have to use the foreign moniker to his face.

That conversation died out, and we finished our dinner and strolled for a bit before going to the concert house. Holmes had left our conversation behind him and must have moved on to anticipation for the concert, as he was nearly radiating with pent-up energy beside me. I had to keep myself from making smug faces at passersby: The man beside me was mine, he had chosen me, he was still alive, he was very much the man I loved, and we were going to a concert together. Walking with him, our canes on opposite sides, we limped together down the streets of Berlin, and I knew I had never felt happier in my life. 

We were nearly late to the showing, the man taking tickets only soothed by Holmes’s apparently flawless German. He let us in, and I followed Holmes to our seats, rather far back from the stage. It wouldn’t be easy to see the actors, but going by the way Holmes was a solid ball of energy next to me, I could tell that the distance did not bother him in the slightest. 

‘You know, Watson,’ he said under his breath, turning to me once we took our seats, ‘I was very nearly an actor.’

I eyed him. ‘Truly, Holmes?’

Holmes nodded and patted my hand. ‘I was told I had an ear for it. I still have most of the costumes.’

This fact about Holmes’s life before I met him did not surprise me; I held it close to my heart and kept it and let it feed into the image I had of Holmes as a younger man: spry and lively, but with some hint of sadness, a tint of loneliness. I saw it in the lines on his face whenever I returned from a trip which separated us. I recognised it in the wrinkles on his brow when I arrived in Berlin; they were the very same I noticed when I first met him in that laboratory those years ago. I wondered how long loneliness had haunted Holmes before I had found him. 

Just before the performance began, Holmes turned to me, a soft expression on his face. ‘Thank you for accompanying me,’ he whispered. 

My heart in my throat, I whispered back unsteadily, ‘I wouldn't have missed it for the world.’ 

Holmes gave me an indulgent smile and a pat on the knee, and as the curtain was raised, he shushed me (needlessly, as I was struck silent), but most importantly he neglected to remove his hand. Looking around, seeing all other eyes focussed only on the stage, I covered his hand with my own and laced our fingers together. They stayed like that for the remainder of the performance, even after Holmes once laughed out loud and raised his hand to his mouth to cover the noise; even after that, his hand meandered back to my own, waiting still on my knee. 

I admit, however, that I was not as moved at the performance as Holmes was. More moved was I by Holmes himself; his eyes were all but glued to the stage, and for a portion of the play, I watched his lips form the words the actors themselves were outcrying. Holmes the actor was a shade before me, and I was enthralled. What if I had met him then, when he was but an actor? Doubtless he would have been one of the best; I don’t think there is an area of study in which Holmes would lack any talent, given he were as passionate in it as I knew him to be about crime. What if I had first met him on the stage, in costume, performing? 

The entire play continued for quite some inestimable time, but even from the start, the voices floated by me, over me, as I instead became hyper-focussed on Holmes beside me, on our hands in my lap, on his pulse which I could feel thrum against my skin. I wanted more, my cheeks burning at the thought, and worse still when I remembered the events of the previous night. Would there possibly be a repeat tonight? Or perhaps even more? Something different? The words of Shakespeare fell on my deaf ears as I contemplated all the possibilities. I landed on my favourite possibility, almost too explicit to write, and ran that idea into the ground, over and over, my cheeks most probably a permanent shade of red. 

Before I realised what was happening, Holmes was letting go of my hand and standing to applaud the company. I stood with him to applaud the actors who did not for a second hold my attention; I felt a bit guilty for not paying attention to a play Holmes had clearly enjoyed and to which he had indeed provided me tickets. But as he turned to me, the last rounds of applause dying down, he fixed me with such a grin, an expression on his face that could only be described as transcendent; any bad feeling I was holding onto dissipated instantly. 

As if in a daze, I allowed Holmes to lead me back onto the streets of Berlin, where the sun was a shock to my system, having spent the past three hours in an internal night. 

‘We have time for a walk before Wagner, now,’ Holmes said next to me. ‘But first…’

Interested, I let him lead me down the street, his limp more pronounced when we weren’t arm in arm. He wasn’t wincing, at least from what I could tell from my viewpoint at his side, and it wasn’t so debilitating that I ought to admonish him, as doctor, to take a rest. I let it be and simply observed him, committing to memory his exact gait now, so that I could compare it to a worse one later if need be. 

Holmes led me to what seemed to be a pharmacy and bid me to wait outside. I nodded, frankly thankful that I would not have to be faced with even the slightest chance of being expected to speak a language I did not know. He appeared a minute later with a glint in his eye and a pack of cigarettes. When he offered me one, I accepted, and we continued our walk, puffing wordlessly as we went. After a few steps, he began to hum good-spiritedly what I imagined to be a prelude to the concert; I was not able to prevent my chest from puffing up at the sound of Holmes in such good spirits. 

However, my leg was starting to give me real trouble, and as if on cue, Holmes led me into another venue, this time for his Wagner concert. By that time I was quite tired from all the walking and thankful to once again take a seat. 

We were even farther back this time, but better still, Holmes had managed to procure a small box for us. A private box to see this orchestra: only the two of us, with no one else able to see us. My mind spun at the implications, even though I knew that we were gentlemen and would not get up to anything unsavoury. But I also knew that if I had the option to hold Holmes’s hand in public, even wrap an arm around his shoulders if I were feeling particularly risqué, I would do so, provided he allowed it. And to be able to touch Holmes — if he did indeed allow it, and I could not imagine he would not, given our hand-holding this afternoon — to be able to touch him during one of his highly-esteemed concerts, when he was so immersed in the music that he seemed aethereal and untouchable — well, the mere thought filled my blood with liquid fire. 

Luckily, I was provided this option and even encouraged by the man himself. While Holmes happily drummed his fingers on his thigh along to the music, my arm stayed around his shoulders through almost the entirety of the performance. When an especially poignant moment occurred in the opera, a moment which had been building for the entire movement, which even my unmusical ears could pick up on, Holmes took my hand and held it to his chest and even, briefly, brought his eyes to mine. The depth of feeling in them in that moment took my breath away. I squeezed his hand and looked back at him, hoping my gaze did not give away how much I was just barely holding back tears. 

The music was intense, just how Holmes liked it, I think, and I travelled the ambient journey with him by his side, as I always ought to be. This time, however, was even more intimate, and not only because we remained touching some way or another the entire time. It was also because of our closeness, the fact that I was so close to Holmes I could smell him, the fact that I could feel and hear his breath, his steady (if a bit heightened) pulse, and the fact that such closeness brought to mind our nocturnal activities once again. I chastised myself for a brief moment: I was obsessing now on the carnal. I had to remember that there was a chance such an encounter would not happen again, or any time soon, at the very least. I forced myself to remember this, until Holmes himself reversed this notion of doubt. 

After the first act or so, Holmes lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it, then kissed my bare wrist. He turned to me, eyes glistening, and whispered, ‘If only we were truly alone right now…’ And then he glanced briefly in my lap. I was not hard, or at least not enough to be visibly so, but the sentiment of his statement remained.

‘Oh?’ I rasped around a thick tongue.

‘Yes, John,’ Holmes whispered, his cheeks tinted. ‘There are several things I would like—’

And before he could finish the sentence, the music started once more, or at least grew louder, and I jumped at the sudden noise. He watched me for a moment longer, lingering, it looked like, and kissed my wrist again. His tongue appeared just briefly on my skin, causing my breath to hitch; he hummed, a sound which resonated deep within his chest, and he returned my hand to my own thigh. He patted it leisurely, once, twice, and just when I thought it was going to stay on mine, he removed his hand and leaned back against his seat. 

I had to refrain from touching him for several minutes so that I could calm down. Once I got my heart back within reasonable beating speed, I stretched my arm behind him to rest on his shoulders, hoping I wasn’t pushing my luck and watching him for any signs of distaste. There were none; he smiled, eyes closed, and leaned back into my arm, his head thrown back and his fingers tapping on his knee. I watched him like that for the remainder of the concert with no further incident, but with such passion and — yes, I daresay — lust coursing through my veins I could not focus on anything, not the music, but him. 

Once again I was stirred from my inward reverie by thunderous applause. Holmes didn’t stand up this time to clap; instead, he whistled a few times, then turned to me, and to my utter astonishment, held my face in his hands and kissed me full on the lips. 

It lasted the span of a breath, our lips pressed together hard, then, as Holmes pulled back or else simply relaxed into the embrace, it immediately turned delicate. He pulled away before I would have liked him to, and then I chastised myself for wanting more when I realised again where we were, the thunderous cacophony of applause roaring back to my ears. I opened my eyes (had I closed them in the span of an instant?) to see Holmes inches from my face, his cheeks ruddy, his hair slightly unkempt, and a pleased, if small, smile on his face. 

‘ _Sherlock_ ,’ I gushed, then chastised myself from saying his Christian name so loud; but he did not seem perturbed in the slightest. In fact, he blushed further and smirked, looking almost smug. I would have to be careful next time, I told myself, unable to keep up the façade of practicality when faced with this pleased version of Holmes.

‘Thank you,’ is all he said, and he stood and stretched, that delightful smile never leaving his face. ‘Oh, I feel _refreshed_ , Watson!’ He turned to me and offered his hand. ‘But our day is not over — I have plans for you yet.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The concerts (Hamlet at Luisen Theater and Wagner’s Lohengrin at Königliches Opernhaus) Holmes & Watson attended really did occur on Sunday, March 2, 1901, per an archived Berlin newspaper I read. Here also is the mention of the great Magnus Hirschfeld, and what Holmes said is true: Berlin had several homosexual, marvelously extravagant balls, which the police did indeed attend. See Robert Beachy’s Gay Berlin for more delicious details. Dancing and smut planned for next chapter — this is now all but planned out and am doing my best not to lose steam.


	9. Die Schwulenkneipe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes & Watson attend a pub in Berlin.

My ears piqued at Holmes's words, and soon I found myself on the streets of Berlin again, arm and arm with Holmes, the sun just beginning to set. Holmes clearly had a destination in mind. He was in a hurry too, it seemed, but his injury kept him from moving his usual speed. I knew because he was holding onto my arm more so than he had earlier that day. I was more than happy to give him the support he needed and knew better than to comment on it. Holmes’s pride (or perhaps rather, his self-worth) was a dangerous, fragile thing. 

After a minute or so walking, Holmes stopped off to the side of the sidewalk to light another cigarette. He offered me one, which I wordlessly accepted, and even lit it for me, his hand cupping around the flame, our faces very close. I watched him intently from this close, unable to help myself. As it was lit, I took a drag and let him rake his eyes over my face as much as he liked, enjoying his thorough attention and affection. I watched him lick his lips, his eyes I am sure on my own lips, and then he turned with a small smile and curt nod and led the way again. 

We walked side by side, Holmes steering us as needed, down streets unfamiliar to me but presumably increasingly familiar to Holmes, until we stopped at what looked like the entrance to a pub. It was: Holmes led me into it, speaking a few foreign (to my ears) words to the gentleman just inside the door.

It was smoky and overcrowded, hot, but with a curious undercurrent of energy and what I could only describe as longed-for elation. There seemed to be dozens upon dozens of people crowded into this smallish room, perhaps a ballroom; men and women, all dressed up to varying degrees, from pearl-necklaced ladies to working-class chaps. There was lively music playing, and it occurred to me that I couldn’t see the band for the throng of people, but knew there was definitely a woman singer and string instruments. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the multitude of people, and that was before I noticed the particular peculiarity of it all.

The men and women were separated, but that wasn’t terribly surprising: what was surprising was the way they were separated. Or rather, the… intimacies … between them. Men danced with men, and women danced with women. Men were draped across other men’s laps, women had arms around each other. 

I looked over to Holmes beside me, my suspicions clarified in his face. He looked excited, but doubtful, his brow creased; his countenance screamed tense and timid, as if he were nervous how I would react to such a spectacle.

‘Holmes…’ I started, without really an end in sight.

‘This is a pub for … people like me,’ he said haltingly in my ear, over the jubilant music. I swallowed, clutching my cane. 

‘Is it safe?’

He nodded. ‘They do not raid these pubs like in London. There is only the trust that nothing overtly inappropriate occurs in the… front rooms.’ I looked around, taking in all of the touching, freely displayed in the open. It was, admittedly, rather a shock to my nerves. Perhaps I could no longer hold to any purity of soul in regards to the direction of my affections, but to see it in front of my face openly, shamelessly, rose a blush to my cheeks. I felt a volt of panic course through me, but Holmes took my arm and spoke. ‘If you feel uncomfortable, we can of course leave…’

‘And if some person of authority were to walk in and see… I mean to say, Holmes—’

‘The odds that we would be arrested are abysmally small.’ His voice was tight, but I couldn’t fault him for it. I felt a flash of shame to even think of the possibility, but it was a possibility, wasn’t it, and especially for Holmes’s kind and the sort of relationship I had with him.

I nodded vaguely and looked at him; he was hopeful; I could see hope in his eyes, along with timidity and an interesting sort of shyness. I shook my head. Holmes had brought me here; what sort of joy could seeing such a place bring him? 

‘You are sure?’ he asked again, sincere. 

Could I do this? For Holmes, I think I could. 

I nodded. _Show me_ , I wanted to say, _Show me what to do, show me how I should act_ , but I couldn’t muster the words. He must have seen it in my face, my eagerness to explore this foreign side of him, because he held out his free hand.

‘Would you dance with me, Watson?’

I swallowed again, the words sitting heavy in my chest, my heart thudding around them. Yes, I wanted to say, _God yes, I would love to dance with you in this strange place, in the open_. 

All I could manage was a gruff-sounding, ‘Y-es,’ and he pulled me by the hand towards the throng and into it. Bodies seemed to move around him as he went, the public clearing space for this very moment, and my heart leaped hard in my chest when he turned to me, hooked his cane over his elbow, and grasped my good shoulder. His posture and hand placement was one of a lady’s, and I realised slowly, my mind hazy not with smoke but desire, that Holmes was bidding me to lead the dance. Luckily the song, albeit jubilant, was slower in nature, and a sort of waltz would do; I doubted I, or Holmes for that matter, could quite muster anything as fast as a Viennese waltz, nor did I quite know the intricate steps of anything fancier. But I could dance, for the most part, or at least I could fake it well enough. I hooked my cane over my elbow, matching Holmes, took his hand and waist, and led. 

I could not take my eyes off of him. Even though he was looking down at me, and it would seem for all the world that he was leading, he yielded to me at every turn, every step, his eyes never leaving mine, coquettish under his lashes, his cheeks a warm, becoming shade. He was lovelier than I had ever seen him, and after that song ended and a slightly quicker one took its place, I pulled him a bit closer, not worried at all about impropriety, as there were couples beside us who seemed only to be embracing each other and rocking back and forth to some other beat. But he went as I pulled him, and he went as I led, the power he was allowing me humbling me above all else. That Holmes would yield to me in this moment meant more than I could say; for I had no doubt he was more than adept at any kind of dance man ever knew, and no doubt he knew I was rusty at the even simplest form of dance. It was an intimate submission, an even more intimate embrace. In the back of my mind, I wondered at the situation: I was holding Holmes in public, dancing with him even, among other men who undoubtedly felt a similar passion for their like-sex partners. A week ago, I woke up crying from a dream I had about Holmes. Now, I gripped him tighter around his waist and pulled him even closer until our chests were touching.

I felt him hum more than heard him and watched a small smile change his face. It was beatific; I grinned back at him. The next song was even livelier; I felt my spirits lift with the melody until I saw just a hint of a grimace on Holmes’s face. He did not falter his steps, but I knew just from that smallest eye twitch that he was in pain, had even felt his shoulders tense with it ever so briefly.

I led us in the direction of an empty corner table, my arm around his waist, giving him possibly more strength than he required, but all the same he was leaning on me heavily. I berated myself; had I pushed him too far? Would he be able to stand if I let him go? 

I sat him down at the table and walked around to sit across from him. I blinked; that wouldn’t do. I did whatever I could to move gracefully around the U-shaped booth to sit next to him. 

He was looking at the table, his hand on his leg. I knew he was in pain, but did not know what to say or do, especially in response to the look of shame and defeat on his face, so I blurted, ‘This chanteuse is quite talented.’

A rumble bubbled up from his chest and he barked out a laugh. ‘Look again, dear fellow.’

Confused, I looked over to the woman singing. Who was not… Oh. I noticed the… tightness of the dress in certain places and a particular bulge in the middle of the throat.

‘Ah,’ I said smartly.

‘Indeed,’ Holmes replied with a smirk. The tension was lessened when Holmes chuckled beside me, I joining in. 

‘Would you like a drink?’

Holmes surprised me and shook his head. ‘No, but let me get you one.’

He stood up again, leaning on his cane more than he had the entire day. I reached a hand out in response, wanting to say _No, I can get my own drink_ , but he waved my hand away. I reckoned he needed to be alone, the shame of his pain too much for him at the moment, so I let him go and watched him weave awkwardly but still somewhat gracefully through the crowd to the other side, to the bar. After a moment, uncertain that I should hold the table in wait, I followed him, my journey much less graceful. I ran smack into two lads, dressed in sailor uniforms (were they truly sailors? I now knew could not trust any outward appearances), apologised briskly in first English then, correcting myself, broken German, and continued on briskly after their smiles turned appreciative, their eyebrows coyly raised. 

Holmes was speaking to a young lady at the bar, a drink in his hand. I presumed she was indeed a young lady: her appearance, her hair, even her clothes and posture, rather pointed in the direction of a young chap. It was only her eyes and voice which I think gave her away. She was pretty, if not manly looking, and I forced my thoughts to stop there before I made a fool of myself. 

Holmes looked up at me as I approached, a smile on his lips as he continued talking. It sounded as though he were speaking French. I looked again at his conversation partner, who was now also turned to watch me approach. 

Holmes held up an arm and I, a blush threatening my cheeks, walked into the half-sphere of his proffered arm and stretched my arm around him to set my hand on his waist. The young lass did not even blink, and turned again to Holmes; she began a tirade of rapid-fire French at Holmes, a look of earnestness on her face. 

When she finished speaking, Holmes held a finger up to her and turned to me. ‘I recognised Erika from my visit to Herr Hirschfeld this afternoon. She has been filling me in on a little case.’ My eyebrows raised, interest piqued, and I turned to her. She didn’t seem to have understood what Holmes had said to me. He continued, ‘I have already solved it, my dear man. Listen.’ He then proceeded to turn his attention back to this Erika and blast out words so quick yet so articulated that I found it impossible to discern one foreign word from the next. It was a blur of deductions, and as he spoke, a look of surprise, shock, then relief overtook Erika’s face. 

‘Bien sûr,’ was her reply, a mystified tone in her voice I more than recognised from myself and others exposed to Holmes’s deducing prowess. The man was indeed a marvel when on the hunt, and was even more astounding when he explained his solution to a case. She continued in language I could not understand, but which left Holmes preening in satisfaction. I squeezed around his waist then stepped forward to shake her hand. 

She returned it, Holmes saying something over my shoulder, most likely introducing me. I did not hear my name at all; of course — Holmes had provided me with an alibi. I would have to ask him what it was later. She shook my hand and said something else, which I managed to recognise, or at least ascertain given the context, to mean ‘nice to meet you’. She thanked Holmes (another small French phrase I could understand) and departed. 

I turned to Holmes, who was once again radiating a sort of bliss, a lightness, which in turn lightened my own chest. I smiled, and feeling brave, asked, ‘Care to dance again?’

He handed me my drink, which I sipped. The beer I liked from earlier, of course. ‘I have something better in mind.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is three weeks late and not even finished -- I am still cranking out the first major Sex Scene I've written in ages & thought 1) it'd be better to update to not lose you dear readers & 2) give you dear readers the option to skip smut easier if needs must. 
> 
> Further: I was saddened to learn that the foxtrot wasn’t a thing until 1914, which is far too late for this Holmes & Watson. Even sadder to realise the fun dances of the twenties and thirties wouldn’t be an option for them either… For the love of fanfiction, can’t someone write an AU that places Holmes & Watson in that era and have them dance their hearts out? Or does someone have a fic rec thereof? 
> 
> I hope reading Holmes&Watson dancing freely in public soothed & balmed your soul as much as it soothed mine writing it.


	10. den Rubikon zu überschreiten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes & Watson return 'home' after a pleasant evening out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is purely smut — those disinclined to read it may skip, but the last note at the bottom may be of interest.

After I finished my beer, of which Holmes himself even drank some, Holmes and I left the club. It was dark in the city now, and fewer people on the streets. A few people here and there were pouring out of the pub we were just in, including the two (possible) sailors, both of whom nodded at me with matching smirks before we each went our separate ways. I caught Holmes’s eye then and was surprised to find a dark look on his face. If I hadn’t known better, I would have guessed that look was one of jealousy; as it was, and especially with a smallish smirk on his own lips, it seemed a knowing, appreciative glance more than anything else. 

We doddered back to his digs slowly and, for once, not arm in arm. There was a heat to his very presence that hadn’t been there before, as though he were burning from the inside out, his chin tipped upward as though floating on high above the rest of us. I wondered at him; his moods, as I have transcribed, have always seemed mercurial at best, and it seemed he had not changed so much in that respect. 

The walk was silent, save our footsteps and the _tink_ s of our canes. There was hardly a breeze, and the air felt stuffy, almost oppressive, but I reckoned that was more of a reflection of my mind than anything: For I felt, walking side by side with Holmes on his way back, that I was walking into something bigger than myself. I had just witnessed something unbelievable, on several different levels; Holmes had just shown me a side of human nature I did not fully know existed, as well as a side to himself which, in doing so, put himself in danger should I be less of a man than he thinks me. As it was, and quite obviously, I would die before I would betray Holmes or give him up. That he allowed me to see that sacred part of his soul showed me more than anything else the level of trust Holmes bestowed in me. It was more than an honour and a privilege; I felt I held Holmes’s fragile yet strong heart in my hands, and I wanted only to cup my own doctor’s hands around it and protect it from all the evil in the world. 

Once again alone in Holmes’s squalid rooms, I leaned against the wall, watching Holmes. It was dark and quiet, and he lit a candle in the sitting room and carried it straight to the bedroom, without looking my direction. The flame flickered wildly as he limped. I followed him, and when I saw him begin to undress to change into his sleep things, I matched his movements. 

‘I do not have brandy for a nightcap,’ he murmured apologetically, once he was clothed only in his nightgown. 

‘I would rather not have brandy anyway,’ I replied. I had begun to deduce what we were to get up to now and didn’t wish for any beverage to dilute the experience. 

Holmes got under the covers, lifting them as he did the night before, and I happily followed him in. I held him close, and he wrapped one loose arm around my bad shoulder and looked at me. I blinked and decided to take the lead he was yielding: I kissed him.

He hummed and shifted a little, pulling me closer, closer so that he was on his back and I was above him, his legs on either side of my hips. The position, the intimacy of it, made me hot; I felt sweat begin to accumulate at my hairline. He was kissing me, and it was all I could do to kiss back, to match him lip for lip, and keep breath in my lungs and some intellect in my head.

Holmes unlatched our lips, panting at the ceiling above us, and without missing a beat I moved down to his neck. It was pale and delicious, and I wanted to mark it. I wondered if Holmes would let me.

He gasped and moved his head to the side and pulled the collar of his nightgown down and over, opening up more of his skin, down to his collarbone. ‘There,’ he rasped, and I understood and latched on, sucking and nibbling until I was sure a mark would be left. He lay there gasping and whimpering, twitching his hips upwards against mine; I pressed one hand to his good hip and held him there, moving further down to latch onto his exposed nipple.

‘Oh!’ A single cry, followed by a keening sound, and I groaned a matching noise and bit just a little. He moaned outright when I released his hip and felt upwards with my hand to squeeze at his other nipple. ‘ _John_.’

I hummed and released his nipple, looking up at him. He pulled me up to his face; I kissed him and licked into his mouth, leaving my hand over his breast.

‘Have you been with a man before, Watson?’ Holmes hushed against my mouth a second later. 

I shook my head, my breath coming out harshly in the silence. No, of course I hadn’t been with another man. Had he?

‘Are you… aware… of what men do together?’

I nodded again and kissed his chin. I was aware: that much I had been aware of, from the army and from whispers spread within the medical field. 

He stroked my hair as I panted, trying to catch my breath and waiting for him to continue speaking.

‘I want you inside me,’ he whispered after a moment, taking my breath away altogether. Before I could form a reply, he added, ‘I have everything we need. I have … done it before, not with another, per se, but I…’ He did not continue, but I understood all the same. After another moment which I spent forcing oxygen back into my lungs, I lost it all again when he said, his voice low and husky, ‘I want your prick inside me.’

Fire ran through my veins at his words and launched me forwards; I closed the distance between us, kissing him with that fiery passion thrumming in my blood, which was ever thrumming in my blood when I was near him. I tried my best to convey the resounding _Yes_ which was currently coursing through me, making me almost dizzy. The mere thought of — of what he asked of me — of putting my prick _there, inside_ him, made me nearly furious with passion. 

‘Watson—’ he panted, keening as I moved my attention to his neck. ‘John. Is that a yes?’

I grunted. ‘ _Yes_ , Sherlock. Tell me what to do.’ I bit his neck gently and he keened again.

‘You know what to do, just—’ He reached over to the little table and handed me a jar of some ointment. ‘Use this, and…’

I nodded, my blood boiling at the thought of being inside Holmes. He spread his legs then huffed in annoyance: his gown was in the way. It took us only a few more seconds to divest him and then myself, and then once more I was kneeling between his scandalously spread legs, salve on my fingers. 

‘Slowly at first, just, ah, one…’ he whispered then gasped as I pressed a finger just there, against his fundament, feeling him. He was hot and clearly enjoyed just feeling my finger there; I looked up from watching it to see his face. He was biting his lip, a sheen of sweat and a look of pure, exquisite anticipation on his face. 

‘Here?’ I asked, swirled my finger then pressed inside. He jerked, nearly kicked me, and nodded. 

‘More,’ he rasped a second later, after he had seemingly gathered enough breath to speak. My heart hammering loudly in my ears, I obeyed.

He was hot inside, and tight, and I couldn’t think any more about it when he clenched around that finger _from inside_ and moaned outright.

‘Another!’ he commanded, or rather tried to, for his speech was so breathy and nearly whiny that it had lost its authority. I smiled and withdrew, slicked two fingers more to be safe and pressed them in at his command. 

He groaned at the stretch, his hips twitching minutely off the bed, and with one quick look at me, one of his hands flew to his cock. I swallowed thickly. There was a stillness in the air, as though we were caught in this moment, suspended in it, in its intimacy; I inside him and watching him pleasure himself. He stared at me, his hand still on his cock, just holding it almost comically, until I swallowed again and nodded.

He nodded at me, or rather in the direction of my fingers, and I took the movement as the goad it was. I withdrew my fingers just to the tip and then thrust them back in. My hips moved with them, following the movement, and my prick ended up pressed to the side of his thigh. His spine bowed, his head thrown back, and he let out the most gorgeous, heartfelt whimper that I hurriedly repeated the movement again, and again, to the same effect. 

He was beautiful like this: wanton, and shameless, and somehow exactly like himself in this intimate moment. It was still Holmes before me, but a quivering, pleasure-seeking Holmes, lost not in himself but in this moment _with me_. I gripped his unmarked thigh and thrust against it as I sped up the pace of my fingers.

I knew I had done something very right when he let out a startled yell — it shocked me at first, but his body moved into the pressure, not away from it, and I wondered not for the first time at the miracle of that gland inside him that made him feel such intense pleasure. He cursed and lifted his leg to wrap high around my middle; I held it there, moving closer on my knees, and rested a third finger just at the rim of him.

He nodded, almost manic with it. I reapplied more of the ointment, during which time I watched him, eyes closed, one hand by his head, clutching the poor pillow, his other hand moving slowly up and down his prick, as if comforting it. I felt hot watching him and hastened to return my fingers there. 

With three fingers inside Holmes, he changed. His stomach tensed, his prick began to drip, and his whimpers became almost higher-pitched. When I struck that place in him again, he began whimpering my name under his breath, as if unaware he was doing it, and I leant over him to kiss him, to feel my own name against my lips. 

The kiss turned sweet, almost chaste, as he let go of the pillow to let his hand roam my side then hold onto my hair. 

‘John,’ he whispered, and I pulled away to look at him and nearly spent myself then. His eyes were clearer than I had ever seen them, not stormy but instead peaceful, and there was a look of such devotion in them that I balked. 

‘I love you so,’ I rasped harshly against his lips, shocking myself as the sentiment poured out of me without my expecting it to. But it was true, and real. 

He nodded, his hand against my cheek, holding me together. He looked unable to speak, but implored me with his eyes, and I understood. He was ready.

I withdrew my fingers and reached for the salve once more to slick myself up, but was surprised when Holmes sat up and took it out of my hands. I knelt before him, feeling a suppliant although our postures were equal. He kissed me once on the lips, then proceeded to focus all his attention on preparing my cock. I bit my lip and grasped his good shoulder so as not to lose it all then, counted to a dozen and then he was lying back against the pillow, pulling me to him by my prick, spreading his legs as wide as they could go, which happened to be fantastically, gorgeously, scandalously wide. I knelt between them and he lifted his hips up and shifted himself down, so that his arse was in my lap. I was not sure how long I could last in this position with my leg bent as it was, but the idea of it — of being inside Holmes, of being closer to him than anyone else ever had — overruled any concept of pain I could possibly conjure. 

I held the base of my prick and felt for his hole, angling it to line up. ‘Are you sure, Sherlock?’ Words were difficult to form, but I had to be absolutely positive that this — that this was wanted, because it felt, to me, like crossing the Rubicon. 

‘Please,’ Holmes said, his eyes boring without pause or hesitation into mine, and he pulled me ever closer by my hips. Then he added, shamelessly, ‘I have wanted this for so long.’

If I could have bent down comfortably to kiss him then, I would have. I opted instead to take his hand and press it to my lips, which earned me a radiant, surprisingly sentimental smile; then I pressed one hand to his arse and the other to my prick. I rubbed it against his rim and felt it twitch; gasping, and looking not down to where I was about to press inside, but at Holmes directly, our eyes connected, I pushed forward and aimed true. 

With just the tip of my cockstand inside, I groaned and Holmes bit his lip, his hand leaving bruises on my hip. I pressed slowly forward, in and in and _in_ , the heat slowly overtaking all of my senses, until I was fully inside.

Holmes whimpered then and rocked his hips downward at some blessed angle which left me seeing stars. My eyes closed and I leaned forward, over Holmes a little, and rocked my hips deeper inside him.

‘Oh,’ Holmes gasped, and it was the same tone of voice he used when a clue had surprised him and led him to solve the mystery. I blushed — then wondered how I could have any modesty to _blush_ when I was _inside Sherlock Holmes_ — and the man himself tilted his hips up. ‘John.’

‘Is it good?’ I asked and rocked again, deeper this time, and knew the thrust had rung true when he cried out sharply.

‘ _Yes_ , there!’ I watched his hand on his cock again as it began to pull, and I matched my thrusts to it.

He was unbelievably tight inside, and hot, and I bit my lip to force myself to last and not spend just then as I so wished to. The end was coming sooner than I meant it to; watching Holmes react like this, wanton, needy, and so responsive that I wanted to give him more, I leaned down as best as I could, one hand above his shoulder, and held his hip with the other.

Holmes instinctively wrapped both legs around my waist and tilted himself even better as I began to move in earnest. He was whimpering with every breath now, every exhale, and I straightened out my sore legs as best I could and ducked my head against his shoulder and rode him with all I had. 

‘John,’ he whimpered, and I grunted in response, my entire body lighting up with that one word, as marvelously uttered as it was. ‘Oh, John, I love you.’

I moaned against his neck, my hips moving slower now as my thrusts deepened. 

‘I’ve loved you for so long,’ he whispered brokenly. Panting, I kissed his neck, licked at the sweat there, and felt him start to tense around me. 

‘I have wanted you for so long,’ I whispered back, moving my hands under his shoulder blades so that I was flush above him, our chests pressed together and my hips never stilling. I felt his good leg hitch higher around me and knew I was still aiming true; his moans were constant now, and I felt his hand between us move quicker on his own prick. 

He turned his head to my shoulder, mouthing at it, and moments later I felt a hand to my own arse, giving me a start, but I quickly understood the request of its placement. I thrust into him faster, then harder, snapping my hips as best as I could, fucking him with my prick as well as I knew how.

He lost it within seconds; I felt him tense and cry out my name and I sat up just a little, my breath coming in fierce pants, to see his _petite mort_ happen. 

His head was arched to the heavens, his eyes squeezed shut; he moaned my name and what sounded like a garbled declaration of love, then let out a string of whimpers and even a few curses as he shook apart under me. I slowed my hips so as not to overstimulate him, but kept moving as smoothly as I could manage, as he spurted across his chest, his hand still on his prick. He was beautiful, aethereal, so real I thought I could cry; I kissed his face, every inch of him I could reach, until he caught his breath and pressed both hands to my shoulders.

‘You’ve not finished,’ he murmured. He sounded sleepy. I shook my head; I was still very hard and very much inside him. ‘I have an idea.’ He shuffled a bit, dislodging me, and turned over to his good side. I took his hint and lay behind him, just as we had slept the night before; I held one hand to my quite angry cock, willing myself with all that I had not to spend prematurely. 

He settled and reached backward to grasp my thigh, and I came closer to him and pressed inwards once more. He gasped.

‘Am I hurting you?’ I asked, my mouth at his ear.

He shook his head. ‘You are exquisite,’ he murmured, and took the hand I had placed on his stomach and kissed it. ‘Do continue.’

I smirked at the attempted detachment of his command, but I knew better: his cheeks were flushed, and his prick wasn’t exactly soft, although it was without a doubt spent for the night. I pressed closer and rocked my hips once to see his reaction: he hummed and thrusted his hips back, forcing me inside deeper. He seemed very interested in continuing, and I knew Holmes rarely did anything he didn’t wish to, so I took him at his word and began to move.

I was limited in my movement in this position, but it also allowed me to penetrate him deeper, and I felt the effects of it within the first half-dozen thrusts. I was _inside_ Holmes, I thought obsessively; I was closer to him than anyone else ever had been, both body and spirit; closer to him, to the man I loved with everything I had and am. I moved within him, feeling my end approaching quicker now, and submitted to it. Holmes was in my arms, making soft noises as I stroked that spot within him with _my own prick_ , and when he turned his head at an awkward angle and kissed me, I gasped and felt myself begin to spurt inside him.

‘ _Oh_ ,’ he whispered, and thrust back as I thrust forward, and he stayed utterly still as I came to completion inside him, the moment lasting longer than I ever remembered. ‘Oh, Watson,’ he hushed, and I stilled finally, still trembling, and kissed him. 

‘You are everything to me, Holmes,’ I whispered moments later. The swarm of hormones had invaded my brain, and I felt warm all over and full of love for the man in my arms. Holmes’s head was pillowed on my arm, and I kissed the back of his neck sweetly. He didn’t seem to want me to move, nor had I any inclination to do so, and so I stayed there, my softening prick still inside him. It was the most intimate encounter of which I had ever been a part, including any semi-truthful trysts which had unfortunately and embarrassingly earned me my army nickname. Holmes was different, obviously so, and I spent not a single second or thought wasted on the reality of what we had just done, for to me, it was and could only ever be an act of the utmost love and devotion.

‘Promise you’ll come back to me,’ he said after a pregnant pause. His eyes were drooping; I imagined he was nearly asleep.

I stroked his cheek and kissed his neck, his hairline, his ear, and held him closer. ‘I swear to it,’ I replied, and followed him soon thereafter into slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, as I see it, the end of Part One. I do have plans for a next part, but whether I will write it in a timely fashion is yet to be seen, and also will feature a shift into Holmes’s perspective as well. As it is, I am marking this as completed; if it is to be continued, it will be in another story altogether. I thank you, Dear Readers, for staying this far. You mean more than I ever realised.


End file.
